Hallway, before and after fire *updated*

* I added a picture of the hall with the newly acquired wool rug. It makes it plush, hides the burns too. : )
**and painted all the picture frames white.....its all white now.



Well, I wasn't sure if I'd make this post, but here it is. We had a freak small fire in the hallway.
A ''cute little'' candle holder I bought from the thrift store which I put outside on the fence, was too pretty, according to roommate to leave it out, so I brought it in and it went into the hallway which is pretty bare. The candleholder was previously used as there was still some read wax all the way at the very bottom of the holder. I still couldn't figure out what it was made of, though being a candle holder I totally assumed it was fireproof. Apparently not.
I was home all day, laid out on the sofa not feeling well, and the candle was lit in the hall which tends to be a bit dark, so I like to keep a candle there for warmth and light. On my way through the hall it had a couple of inches left to burn and I went outside to watch the new baby goldfish in the pond. 5 minutes later when I came back into the house, it was all in smoke, foggy and barely was I able to see. I found the hallway brightly lit and the wall and floor on fire, the candle holder black from being totally consumed and burnt. It was too strange, how something could burn so completely in so little time. 5 Minutes is all I was outside. I put the fire out myself, opened all the windows, and the fans went on, then I called 911 anyway because the wall was burnt and it was right next to the power box.
When they got here, they came inside, then went back out to put their masks on. This is after I did the work myself. My roommate was out doing his local shopping and came home to find all this. My face was black from soot, but everything was fine. Except all the soot in the house, and the strangeness of it all.
The cleaning of this event I will not soon forget, though I will hope to. But every single thing in this house had to be cleaned, not wiped, but cleaned and wiped. The firemen warned us it would be so. They were actually nice. I did everything before they got here because I had images of them breaking everything down and through and I just didn't want this cozy house trampled by good intentioned brutes. So I did it all myself LOL. But they weren't like that, large as they were! It was so surreal! I think there must be some requirement that the firemen here must be over 6 feet tall. They even wiped their footprints, and swept up! I said to John....''John,.....they're sweeping!" .... one of them laughed and said, yes, we do that too. I was still shocked in so many ways. John said they all came in because they wanted to see the ''cute house''. I actually heard 2 of the firemen say, they didnt smell smoke, but could only smell incense! Amazing.
Anyway, weeks later, I have some pics.

I needed simple, and something I could do with the usual criteria, something I already had on hand or that I could get for really cheap.  The hallway is challenging because it is no space to really put anything and I had to do something the roommate would like too because it's his house. :D
I decided after he had painted the hall....all white.....to sit with it a while and see if I wanted to stay with that color or do something else. I had decided on something else....but.....in the meantime, I had painted the old angel sconces white and put them back up. When I had lit candles in tea lights....no the fire did not make me afraid of candles.....there is no danger with them.....it was the freaky candleholder that was the problem.
So the candles are lit in the all white hall and there is something ethereal and pristine. It kept catching my attention, there was something I really liked about it. I thought wouldn't it be nice if there was absolutely nothing to do here? NOT...LOL......it did need something.....but I said.....what if I took what kept catching my eye here, the pristine ethereal feeling and went all the way with that? That is the most obvious, and simple thing to do, so I went with it. I decided I could have ''my white section'' since I do love white, I just can't do it everywhere in this house ....but the hall is already white now, so lets just do that. Also, here in south Florida, a cool feeling that pure white generates is welcoming. Now all I had to do was to figure out what to do that was simple, easy and has a wow factor, keeping the feeling that was there but magnifying it.

First was softness needed to be added, and I have lots of mosquito net curtains from IKEA, so they went up. I loved them! What can white netting not beautify?? I preferred them untied, but then going through would mean pushing them aside and this feels too much like blockage, bad feng shui. Its just not good to have anything blocking walking pathways. So I tied them. We can walk through them just fine.
But finally it occurred to me some beautiful Arabesque Stenciling along the tops and making archway patterns would be gorgeous in a color that was slightly metallic to reflect the candlelight but not be too obvious to the eye. In other words, you can mostly notice it only when there is the light reflecting off of it, and hardly at all without it....that's how soft I wanted it. Perfect.....
I had the stamps, not a stencil, which I had done in a previous apartment and I loved it, now all I needed was the paint. I decided upon a soft metallic champagne color. I experimented, mixed and tested and retested the colors I had and nothing worked. It was surprisingly strong on the stark white. I realized I had to buy the color. I found one from Martha Stewart in Home Depot called Golden Pearl....it is perfect. I stenciled, put the sconces back up, with velcro for added stability, and the candle holders I kept are a frosted glass, also velcro-ed down, and I added flowers to the holes in the broken angel sconces because I just couldn't throw them away, and now all we need is the wool hallway rug I'm about to order from ebay, for warmth and practicality......covering the burn marks. :D
So...here are the pics. The walls were a lite buttercup yellow. The wooden frame was waiting for me to paint it and add something in it. The sconces were still gold in this picture. You can see the black everywhere.
The fire was next to the power box. Thank goodness there was nothing in the wall. These pics were after John scrapped them all down with a scrapper and washed, believe it or not~!

 
That's enough of that.


Here, after all was painted white, and I added the curtains, I was playing with what kind of candle holder I liked best, keeping the pristine ethereal feeling in the hall. In this picture I had up Himalayan Salt Crystal holders and the overhead light was on.



Below,  I had the frosted glass up and this is with overhead light.I prefer the frost glass to the salt crystal ones because they keep the ethereal white going, whereas the Himalayan Crystal holders added an orange glow.


     Below is without overhead light which is how it looks all the time. I don't use overhead lighting. John likes his picture which is nice actually but the frame is horrid. But its his, so he keeps it, and I work around it. :D




The stamping begins...... I wanted to create the feeling and shape of an archway.

Detail of the stamp in "Golden Pearl''......a metallic color that is light and pale, and reflects nicely with candles.

How the hallway looks now, only waiting desperately for a beautiful wool rug runner for softness, warmth and cover. The wooden frame I painted also in the Golden Pearl and hung it around the power box and added the fringe which was on it, and now the power box is all embellished for the time being. LOL. I also have bags of gems around it because the emf's it gives off is toxic and a friend said this trick worked for her and others and it may work for me and it does. To hang crystals on the box, as their energies deflects the negative effects of electricity from power boxes which gives me major headaches, etc. Since I hung them, less headaches :D :D
Blue tape on the floor to finish up towards the back. I just can't do anymore....it stays as is for now.....tape came off.......just wishing for the rug now.




My favorite pic......the colors are pretty good and true to what it is here now. I think its pretty. :D

A friend gave me her pictures when she moved. I always loved them.

 All the picture frames are white now.

Thank you for listening.