Small Entry Updates

Many of you guys have seen a lot of the changes we made in the entry of our Texas house, but I am finally getting around to posting about it.  

Small Entry Updates!

Let’s review what it looked like when we bought it, shall we? (below)

Obviously a big change that we made in the space was the stair remodel.   But I am going to do the final reveal on that later.  Also we added an archway while doing the living room remodel and that really helped the entry to feel like its very own space, not just a hall. 

Anywho, I started off this space by painting the door black 3 years ago.  I just want to point out that I was actually ahead of a trend!  Yay!  (it’s the little things that make me happy…)  We loved how much character it immediately added to the space.

We changed out the light too. Before the light matched the crazy low living room light and the dining room light. We couldn’t do a chandelier so instead, we found a light at Home Depot that wasn’t flush to the ceiling and we really liked that a lot more.  I realize I could have gotten all DIY light fixture, but it was one of the first things we did when we moved into the house, so I wasn’t about to change it out again later, there are plenty of other things to spend my benjamins on.

(Don’t you love how you can see that I taped photos to the front of the glass to see if I liked them in those frames… not sure how long they stayed like that. Chances are it was longer than I want to admit.

But there was still a huge problem, this space was SO dark!  Most of the days I left the door wide open (with the screen locked just so I could actually have some light)  But that sill makes me a bit nervous- a mom home alone with her door wide open… not safe. 

So one day while we were checking out the Habitat store I came across a door that I fell in love with.  Technically it was sort of dated, but I really loved the carved look of it.  It was only about $45 bucks too!  SCORE!  And it came with some free sticker… great.

I love how cottagey the door was.  It sort of reminds me of Hansel and Gretel… (I think because of the glass that it felt that way)

Figuring out what I wanted in the entry a la furniture ,changed several times….  It was actually quite a tight space, so technically furniture wasn’t a great option (although I did try it out two times)  What I ended up liking the most was a lack shelf from Ikea as an “entry table”  I would have loved to find some antique corbels to hold it up… but I never did!  Here are some of the options I had going:

At first I tried a bench with 6 black and white frames on a grid.  Then I took the bench away and tried the Lack shelf under the frames. Lloved that for a while.  Then I found this screaming deal on a $200 frame (I got it for $30) at an antique store.  I wish I hadn’t painted it white.  I miss the gold.  Happily, I found an old bench on Craig buddy’s list that I updated.  I LOVED the bench and we had it there for a while, but it did make the entry space a little too tight.  So when we tried to stage the space to sell, I moved it out, once again!

Since I loved having my black entry door, after I while I worked my way throughout the house painting all my interior doors black.  Obviously it took more than one coat…

Originally I painted the entry walls what I thought was going to be a greyish tan (mis-mixed paint, sorry no colors) But in daylight it was much closer to lavender.  So, I repainted the walls with some leftover blue paint  from the kids bath upstairs.

Since space was limited and we wanted a little bit of storage we designed and built a wall mount storage bin (free plans at the link!), that I still LOVE!  We decided to leave it with the house… maybe I will make another one someday.  Or if we sell the house we will just take it with us then.

The last little addition was buying an entry rug!  I found 2 rugs I liked on Overstock (great deals!).  Just by pure coincidence the shape of the design on this rug matched PERFECTLY with the door. I literally didn’t notice it until I had the rug in my space (I had purchased two rugs and was leaning toward the other rug until I put them into the space, and realized how much better this one looked.  And this one went really well with the living room rug! 

Okay, so it will show you guys the final view of the space when I show you the stair reveal!  But what do you think so far or our small entry updates?

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