Entryway Reveal!

I know some of you have been anticipating my entryway project post...well, here it is! Sorry it took me a little longer than I hoped, but you can see we have been enjoying the summer and Brad's time off.

Again, here is the before shot...there are just so many things wrong with this eyesore I wouldn't even know where to begin, but the good news is it doesn't look that that anymore!

Here is a during shot where you can see the old windows and door.


Here we are installing the new, larger windows and a new steel door where the flimsy, aluminum one was. The little room gets so much natural light now - I love it - and it is very well insulated now too!





After!






Now that the main door is here, we were able to remove the old, wooden door and left the doorway open from the entry to the kitchen.


A before shot of our lovely, astro-turf carpet...


After! We used the same flooring that we installed in the kitchen. I love this floor! So easy to keep clean!


Before shot of the ancient light fixture...


After!




We also added a porch light outside the door which has been wonderful! (except for all the bugs it attracts that try to get in the house when you open the door in the evenings...any suggestions for that?!)



The walls were originally covered in the same vinyl siding as our house (which will have to go if we stay in this house long-term...it is not welcome here, haha) on two walls, and had rotting paneling on the other two walls. We tore everything out and made sure everything was super insulated before adding new drywall and beadboard to match the pretty, original ceiling (probably the only redeeming factor in the room). I painted it with the leftover paint from our bedroom and stenciled the top half of the walls (with ultra bright white) to somewhat resemble wall paper and add some visual interest. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!







Before/During:


After!


I added a row of hooks to catch those purses, coats, and hats that guests may bring!


And moved our mail board here too. This is where I hang any outgoing mail so we see it and grab it on the way out the door!


Before/During:


(adding the new basement door - so we can wall off the old stairwell landing for the pantry)




After!


My $4.99 frames from Ikea with some sweet pics of the kids having fun at the beach.





So there it is! Here's one final look at the before and after!


Now it's too pretty to call a mudroom - it's definitely been upgraded to an entryway and says, welcome to my home! :)

Entryway Sneaky Peeky!

I never thought I would say this but I think the entryway just may be be my new favorite room in the house...seriously?! It is really starting to come together and it is even better than I imagined! I was able to paint the last couple days and so we will be ready to put the beadboard paneling up and the floor in this weekend. Then all that is left really is the trim and a few hooks for coats! Then I will post the before and after pics and show our project in full, but until then enjoy this sneaky peeky of what we've been up to!

This is the view from the kitchen into the entryway - that wooden door is no longer there so it is open now. (This really says welcome to my home, right? And that was on a day it was actually "picked up." Eek. Can you say problem area?)

Say bye-bye to this eyesore...

...and hello beautiful!
(there's the new door to my basement so we can wall off the new pantry!)

(Just imagine the pretty trim around the windows and ceiling finished and the beadboard up :)...)

So much more to come!

The world is your paint box!

Ok maybe not the world, but your world...your home!

I've done a lot of painting and color selecting in my life. In this house alone, in 4 years, I've painted the kitchen twice, the dining room 3 times, the living room 3 times, the bathroom twice, the playroom twice, our bedroom 3 times, plus the rooms that have only seen one coat of paint...yet. :) The good thing about that is that I have learned a TON about picking colors that you love because I have definitely picked some that I didn't!

So, this is my advice for choosing paint colors:

Find inspiration.
Whether that's in a magazine, online, or in homes you visit, figure out what colors you are drawn to. What colors do you like looking at? Cause if you put them on your walls you are going to be looking at them a LOT! I keep a folder in my desk of magazine pages I rip out with ideas and colors I like. I also have a folder on my computer with photos I come across on blogs I read that inspire me. I started to realize that in pictures I loved the color gray especially with crisp whites and black, but I don't have any gray in my home...until now! I also learned that as much as I love the color red, I prefer it in small doses in my home. It's a very difficult color to master from a paint can.

Size does matter.
It's the power of paint. You can make a small room look big or a big room look small just by the color you slap on there. In my experience a dark color makes the room look smaller. Figure out what you are going for and use paint to help you create that feel. If you are really in love with a darker color, but the room doesn't get a lot of light or is pretty small to begin with, paint one accent wall with the color and something lighter for the rest of the room.

Shed some light.
Different rooms get different amounts of light and that is going to affect your color. Do not go to HD or Lowes and pick the paint for your house without bringing home a paint card or sample! Never ever! Those colors will look extremely different under the store's florescent lighting than they will in your home. I also usually don't share my paint color names on here for the simple fact that you shouldn't see a color you like in someone else's home and run out and buy it for yours. It may look completely different in your lighting and sized room. In fact, a color used in one room in your house may look completely different when used in another room in the same house. Keep that in mind!

I'll take the sampler plate.
I take a ton of color cards with me and then I tape them up on the wall in the room I am painting. I can immediately eliminate a few off the bat, but then I give it time and eye it each time I'm in the room to narrow it down more. Then, take your favorites and tape them to a different part of the room (different walls will have shadows or more or less light changing your color slightly). If you can't get it down to one, then I recommend getting a couple samples -- you can buy a sample size of the color for under $5 which is totally worth it in a lot of cases. Our living room can be dark, but by using a sample on the wall of a color I wasn't leaning towards from the cards showed me that it gave light to the room! And I LOVE the color!

Go with the flow.
It's nice to have colors from room to room that compliment each other rather than compete with each other. Stick to the same color schemes or tones so that the rooms easily flow together, but have fun with your colors. Don't feel like every room should be a shade of beige! If you really want your home to have neutral wall colors, but want to add some brightness, you can even shake things up by painting a small bathroom or laundry room with a bright pop of color.

It's all relative.
Don't be afraid to repaint! Paint is relatively cheap in the scheme of home improvement and gives you the biggest bang for your buck! If you don't like it you can redo it. That's the beauty of paint...and it's a lot cheaper than buying a whole new house :).

Happy Painting!

Freshening Up

This week I decided I was ready to freshen up our bedroom. While I was pregnant with Elijah, I painted the dark trim white, which really helped brighten up the room. You can read about that in the post here. (I still need to paint the top molding as you'll see in the photos). But the wall color in there, as much as I liked it, made it feel too dark. I wanted something more light and refreshing and I wanted to declutter it.

I have really been falling in love with the color gray lately and I found this gorgeous shade of gray that had a slight hint of blue and of green in different lighting but was still very neutral. It's hard to capture the color in the photos, especially with the lighting and angles in there, but here are a few pics to show you what I've been up to! It's amazing how a coat of paint can change the whole feel of a room. I'm SO happy with how it turned out. It's almost spa-like with the crisp whites and black accents (especially the headboard we made)! I also hope to use this color in our entryway when we get that finished and now I'm thinking downstairs powder room too....

I also moved my dresser into my closet to help simplify the room a bit. I love my dresser and think it's a beautiful piece of furniture, but it's not practical to have it out in the room when it fits nicely in my closet and adds that much more space to our room. If we ever have a bigger room someday I will happily pull it out! This made a little more space for the bassinet, which we still use on occasion, and once Elijah outgrows it I would love to find some kind of cool chair or something to go there. I'll be keeping my eyes open :).

Another change I made was to our bedding. We have been using a down blanket for awhile now, and it was very warm for the winter, but I've been longing for a soft, cozy comforter. I knew I wanted crisp white (easily interchangeable should I ever want to change up the pillow or sheet color, plus I am really picky about patterns). I found a textured pin-tuck style from west elm that I fell in love with, but didn't fall in love with the price tag...so I started my mission of finding a look-alike for less.

Here is the west elm version - around $170 once you add tax and shipping and doesn't include shams.

Found similar style at Target - reviews said to size up cause it runs small so king size cost $99 before shipping and tax. Better, but still too much!

After weeks of googling and waiting I found on ShopNBC, on clearance, this set, shams included. I used Ebates (I'll have to post about that soon too!) and got an additional 10% off plus I will get another 2.5% back in my Ebates account,so grand total came to right around $40! And the kicker, the west elm set is 230 thread count and reviewers said it wasn't super soft, but the shopnbc version is 300 thread count and it's like sleeping under a cloud! :) For that price difference, and softness I am defintely okay with the knock off!

And here it is at home on my bed! :)

I also simplified the room by taking down a lot of the wall hangings and I painted a simple mural on the wall above the fireplace/entertainment stand. I love vinyl, but wanted to keep it cheap and you all know how much I love to paint on walls, so this was the perfect opportunity. I used white for the tree branch and the dining room color I had leftover for the birds. Hard to get a good photo with the sun shining so bright from the opposite wall, but here it is...

And the final section of the room that I am still finishing up is here. This is my problem area, so I'm working on a solution. (The door to our room used to open the other way too by the way (awkward!)...we flipped that around when I painted the trim last fall and it is so much nicer plus I can hide my hooks of purses and towels behind the door!) I got a steal on this mirror that is going to hang on that wall. Then I am trying to decide what to build that can hold all of my toiletries and stuff I use to get ready in the morning. Probably a small bookcase with some wicker baskets. Since we don't have a master bathroom, which is where I would probably keep all of those goodies, I need a spot for it in our room and this is where it tends to end up. I'll try to share a pic when I get that section finished.

So there we go! Hope you enjoyed this little tour of our freshened up room! In case you are thinking about painting, or repainting, I have a post coming up about choosing paint color that may help you out so stay tuned!