Before & After: the dark grey hallway takeover continues

I've been banging on about my hall sporadically over the past couple of months. The entryway part of it got quite a major overhaul to boost light and declutter it. 

But leftover was this little understairs nook. Which I sort of liked as it was...

But since we'd painted a wall in the top part of the hall dark grey, there was an argument that the new wall needed a same-coloured buddy to balance things out (you can check out the other wall here, where I also asked your advice about whether or not to repaint the stairs nook dark grey too).

Apart from the untidy lighting wire I need to find a solution to, the area looked OK. But because there's no natural light, the white never really looked especially white...

Though it still was a vast improvement from what it had been previously...

...somewhat cluttered. It was my workspace for a while when I had lodgers, and I'm not sure now what those charts were stuck up on that shelf, but seeing them every time I came in and out of the neighbouring kitchen can't have been relaxing.

Even tidy it looked pretty busy.

But then this scary giant clear-out happened, and I moved my workspace upstairs and out of sight from day-to-day living.

But in the end, I was seduced by dark paint. And things went from this...

...to this...

...and this...

I'm kind of over dark grey, but – like its wall partner up the stairs – the understairs area had to blend with the floor to visually create more space rather than being chopped up with colour changes (and the floor isn't due for a change for a good while yet). And the other point was to make it dark so it was cosy rather than grubby looking. I think it's better. Do you?