The Hall Part 1- You would think such a small room wouldn't be such a big project

I don't know why I waited so long to start this project. It is a small room and should be pretty quick, right? The problem is: when I did the wood cleaning and refinishing throughout the rest of the house, I quickly learned how difficult it was to strip doorways. Though this is a small room, it has two doorways. I also knew that I wanted to create a built-in mirror/coat rack in this room so it would take a bit more time. 

 After we moved in, we bought a wardrobe and placed it in the front hall to store coats. Before moving it in, I had taped an outline of where I wanted a future mirror to be. Of course, when I pulled out the wardrobe, the tape, from ten years ago, was still there.

The room had other issues too. There was pealing canvassed walls and cracking plaster that needed repair. I decided not to fuss with these elements all that much and just did a plaster patch and repaint over the papered and plastered areas.

The wood in this room was much like the rest of the wood ocne was in the house: splattered with paint, poorly stripped, dirty and all around crappy-looking. I spent quite a bit of time with the denatured alcohol and steel wool cleaning it all up.

The door was a particular challenge because it has quite a bit of detail. I cleaned out the lambs tongue molding and made some minor repairs to the door. 

I then stained all of the wood and this room in much the same way that I stained the wood throughout the rest of the house. I followed up with a varnish over everything.