The Cherry Chocolate Hall

    The front hall began like this.

   You'll note the door. As did we. It was so very handsome we immediately assumed that the previous owners had perhaps spent all their door budget on the one.
   At first we didn't recognize the wall treatment. We thought it was a rough paper made to look like terracotta. But after taking a piece of the tattered wall around to various hardware and paint shops, a woman in Home Depot paints remembered it - a designer "suede" paint mixed with sand. Whatever it was I didn't want to repeat it, but now I knew I could simply paint over it.
   I do not have what I've heard called "the color gene" - that uncanny ability to choose paint colors well. Already I had made a mistake choosing the color, or more accurately the hue, for the place the living room wall meets the eating area. Faced with that decided handicap, I moved carefully through the eye-watering and mind-numbing world of swatches.
   In the end I was saved by one - "chocolate cherry". It is beautiful, deep and rich and I needed no more choices.
   Clearly this was a dangerous decision, but it wasn't clear to me. Only later did I hear four coats were necessary, but my greatest threat was where the creamy moulding would meet with the crimson. I am not and never have been a professional painter but we are quite pleased with the drama that is now our little foyer.

   Though I have no other photos of the previous hall, there is a hint of it from the old plaster room...

And here is the new hall from the new plaster room

   It is truly delicious.