Subterranean Hallway Blues (sorry Mr.Dylan)

A busy but sleek hallway by gifted designer Stephen Knollenberg

Our house is a 4-level split, which means we have three floors of living space and a basement, all equally sized with about six stairs between each floor.  I grew up in a two-storey house and really wanted one for our own, but I have grown very fond of this arrangement.  I like having separate warrens of activity, and this arrangement affords that, like in old-fashioned houses!

Which leads me to the ugly bits of our house.  Because of this design, we have a partially subterranean floor, some of which is sorely out-of-date.  I will show you a full view of the family room at a later date (I promise it is very ugly apart from its gorgeous wood floor - think 1973...)

But the subject of today's post is this hallway, which needs some love...

The downstairs hallway is the epicenter of all these "utility" rooms.  Leading off this hallway is the family (tv) room at the far end (which has half-height windows with nice white wood shutters),  stairwells leading up and down on the left, a powder room on the left, and a spare bedroom and laundry to the right. There is also a big closet at the near end.

The photo below shows the view from the other end, where you can see the back door to the garden (which is accessed by a short flight of stairs):

It is a wonderfully busy space with all these doors.  And it has a rather ugly but perfectly fine floor!  We plan to replace all the mouldings one of these days, but in the meantime I am planning to paint them all white this summer.

I think a new blue slate floor would be lovely here.  But for now, I've decided to have a nice wide wool carpet runner custom-made to run almost the entire length.  I found a spot where I can get a deal on carpet, thanks to connections from my interior design class last year.

I'm also planning a small gallery of art on the one available long wall, but I'm still looking for options.  I would like something simple and clean, like botanical prints, architectural drawings, or perhaps line drawings. I adore sketches and have always loved this study of David by Raphael:

I am fond of this sketch of Antwerp by Durer:

On Saturday, I'm going to look at carpet samples.  The adventure begins!  

Do you have any ideas for transforming this dull space?

Biscuit and I shall await your replies.  And please don't suggest changing the floor unless you are willing to foward the funds.

For now, paying off our mortgage is my biggest dream...!