The upstairs hallway project has been my most dragged out project thus far. For only a few square feet of space, it’s taken me months and it’s not even complete! I am okay with it though because we are going to be in this house for a long time and I don’t want to rush anything - I want to do it right the first time.

When it came to decorating the hallway I knew I wanted to incorporate two things:

1. a nod to my family and/or family photos : I have so many beautiful pictures of my family, but not a lot of them hanging in the house. I’m running out of wall space, so I have to incorporate some form of family pictures in this hallways

2. a mauve color story : I fell in love with the Anthropologie Double Diamond Rug for its beautiful color palette - the pink, mauve, eggplant, and brick red are so lovely together! I bought the rug at the Anthro outlet before I chose the wallpaper for hallway, and the requirements for the wallpaper were that it needed to look good with the rug, but also needed to be neutral enough to look good without the rug. I found exactly what I wanted in the Eifffinger Geonature wallpaper - it’s black and white, but it gives off a subtle mauve tone. (read more about the wallpaper here.)

   AND…

3. BONUS: Floral vibe : I was not dead set on it, but I liked the idea of incorporating florals in there somehow. The mauve-y color palette just naturally feels so floral.

So with that criteria in mind, I pined over ideas for the hallway decor for weeks (maybe months) until last week when it all came together!

If you saw my Instagram stories last week you saw that I mentioned that I bought a piece of artwork I was coveting on Etsy. It wasn’t that expensive, but in all honesty…I’m pretty cheap and I like paying “flea market prices.” This painting was a little over what I would have paid for it at a flea market, but when I tell you it’s perfect, it’s PERFECT. Without further adieu, here she is…

How perfect is she? I actually saw a very similar painting at the County Living Fair this year that I loved, and it was $275. When I found this one on Etsy I immediately saved it and checked on it daily for weeks to make sure it was still available! Now she’s mine (well, when she gets here from Slovenia) I love the mauve backdrop and how well it will work with the rug. 1. check! and 3. bonus check!

Next up was the family photo thing… I wanted to do something more creative and interesting than just putting some photos in frames, I wanted to make an impact on this wall that is highly visible from my front door. I have toyed with ideas for this for months - some of them included finding cool old oval frames (thinking the oval shape would shake things up), using regular frames but thick pink matting to make them stand out, making silhouettes of the girls … none of those ideas felt RIGHT.

This passed Tuesday, I went antiquing with my older daughter and I spotted this piece of art…

I found this piece intriguing because of the bold silhouette and the hand painted flowers. I’m so glad that I took a picture of it because this totally inspired the next phase of the hallway decor - I’m going to make similar versions of this of each of my daughters! Stay tuned for a how-to because I think it’s going to be good!

Here is how my hallway plan is shaping up…

I want the arrangement to be very symmetrical, so the vintage painting will be hung centrally on the wall with a framed silhouette of each of my daughters on either side of it. I am also toying with the idea of flanking the top and bottom of the painting with some black and white family photos displayed in vintage black frames (that I have been hoarding.)

What do you think? I would love to know your thoughts, so please share in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

Dana