Hi Friends.  I hope you are having an amazing week.

Today I’ll be sharing how we made some upgrades to our entryway.  I love to come up with easy home renovation solutions that are not complicated.  Sometimes it seems like we have not made any progress, but when I look back to old photos I cannot believe all the little projects here add up to a huge transformation!  Today I was looking at some old photos and I could not believe how our entryway looked when we first purchased out house.  Yikes!!!!  After all, the entryway is the first place our guest get to see when they come in.  I wanted to make it both functional and beautiful. This space was lacking both.

Freshen up the Wall Color

So much has changed since this photo.  Look at how dark this space looked like. When you first buy a home and don’t want to make a huge investment in a home project, one idea is to freshen up the whole feel of a room by simply painting your walls. I suggest a neutral color just because with time your decor style might evolve and you will probably want to repaint if in several years if you choose to go bold. The first thing we ever did to our home was paint our walls of the main floor.  This was both inexpensive and made such a huge impact. The original color was a light yellow . I definitely wanted to add a bit more brightness to the whole house so we decided to look at several White wall paints.  If you have ever painted your walls, you know there are so many options even when you narrow down to a certain color palette. It was so hard to decide which color to go with because there are so many tones and shades of any particular color. Here is a guide to help you choose wall color that I found helpful.

After a lot of sampling , I decided to use Behr Swiss coffee.

  What I loved about this color  is that its not a bright white.  Just with painting our walls , gave our entryway a whole new look and feel.

Add some Wall Texture

I love that there are so many ways to enhance a boring wall. There is board and batten, bead board, and wallpaper. We decided to add shiplap to the small wall that you see in the photo above .  I will be sharing a blog post were I go over how we installed shiplap to our walls soon.  

Make it Functional

I wanted to make this space beautiful but I also wanted it to get the best use. I a coat rack and I painted it with Old Barn Living Paint. I wanted it to look old and weathered. This paint gives anything you paint a chippy look on your paint. I love to add décor that gives the look of it being curated and the chippy paint did just that. I also wanted it to be a unique piece with a ledge, so my husband made this for us . We got all of the materials from Home Depot.

Add some seating

We have a very small foyer. I have to be honest, my entryway has been a hard space to make it feel just right. I have changed the seating several times , truth be told. The first time, I went with some vintage theatre chairs. Honestly, they were just too big for our little foyer. We used them about a year. I didn’t want to sell them, but I knew it was the best choice. The best thing to do when trying to decorate a space is not to rush just to finish off a space and you end up buying something you totally don’t love or even is the right thing. It’s best to take your time and the perfect piece will show up. Our seating needed to be a specific length because our of our front door. I had been looking for a church pew for quite sometime on Marketplace, but the ones that I kept seeing were just too big. One day, the perfect one had recently been listed. I really couldn’t believe that something became available. So, just be patient and look often.

Changed the front door.

This door had to go .  I was at one point going to paint it.  I knew that eventually we would replace it.  I went online one day to get an overall idea on how much Front Entryway doors cost.  I was surprised to find that you can find some for around $350.  I checked out Home Depot and after looking and doing some research we decided to buy one.  Here is an article that helps you choose the perfect Entryway door if you are ever in the market.

Paint your Stair Railing

The last and most recent update was painting our black stair case railings.  We used Glidden Premium Exterior paint and Primer. The color we used was Cows Milk.

We also bought the Wagner Spray Paint Gun.  It was so helpful.  I’m so glad we had that to help with this project.

I hope this blog post was helpful. I’d love to here what you think about the changes and if you decided to use any of these ideas I shared today!

XO

Cynthia