a photo of the existing space would help.

How about a Tall wainscotting/board and batten of a PVC material... easier to clean off and styleish. A good primer and paint will help.

do you have natural light? have storage behind doors?

Not well lit, there is a small closet (and an ugly wall of tile - no idea what the guy was thinking - house was a flip)

Tile is actually a practical surface under these circumstances, the flipper just made a bad choice. He also may have used the cheapest paint he could find so it's not holding up to being washed. It depends how much time and money you want to put into this. You could just repaint with a better quality paint and a higher sheen level, or if you want to really fix it, remove all the ugly tile and paint or retile the hall.

So the tile is covering cinderblocks. You can kind of see in the picture that I have a smidge of room so I could build out the wall to cover the tile, or I could try panting the tile. If I put up some sort of pvc wainscoting, how do you handle the 1.5” space between the trim of the door and the corner?

The 1.5" space could be filled in with a wider trim board.

Ok thanks

I'd go with the best paint possible in a satin finish. In my neighborhood, the entryways get frequently dinged up by kids and dogs. The neighborhood solution is to repaint every year or two with the same color paint when scrubbing down with 409 no longer works. Formica panels may be a good alternative if you are not ready to re-tile.

I have a 70 lb dog and totally get it. Farrow and Ball has a new paint called Dead Flat. It is totally matte and cleans better than any other paint I have had including super gloss. Yep, it is expensive but it covers really well. And yep, they are totally pretentious about their secret, miraculous formula. I just know it is incredibly low VOC (I'm super sensitive to chemical odors and this didn't bother me at all) and I wipe off my dog shmutz with vinegar and water spray no problem at all.

Easiest cleaning paint I have ever had. I actually got it because of a super long narrow hallway in a guest suite that I knew would get scuffed up with suitcases.

Thanks! I was worried that pvc breadboard might yellow. I’ll look into that paint. I hadn’t considered Formica panels.