Entry Excitement

I love having "favorite days" at the house!  My most recent favorite day was painting the stripes on the laundry wall.  My first favorite day was coming home from a trip to see that Jeremy had hired someone to redo my entryway!!!!


Opening up the entry closet into a niche is one of the only real structural things I wanted to do in the house (for now!) but I thought we would have to wait awhile to get it done.  I made a strong case for getting it done before the floors went in so we wouldn't have to patch in later and although he didn't admit it at the time, he must have agreed!


Imagine my excitement when I came home after two weeks to find a beautiful new clean entry!  Let's take a trip down an old, dark, dusty memory lane to see what the entry looked like before...

Yikes!  Open the front door and there is a large, dark ugly closet!  I feel like the Munsters should be looming in the doorway somewhere (not to mention the pale green carpet and awesome light fixture).

My first move was to take out (and hide) the closet doors one day when I was at the house by myself.  Very subtle, I know.  I was going for the, "well we obviously can't keep it like this" effect.

Then Paul Romero and his drywall team, who are amazing, came in and finished the job.  They opened up the walls and ceiling then framed it out with drywall.



So much better already, right?  Now for the grand plan....  I want to tile that back wall with some kind of decorative textural tile.  Something like this..

Then add sconces on the two side walls and a cool bench in the middle.  However these tiles are mucho expensive!  So, in the meantime I found a great solution.  These "tiles" are made from cardboard and are cheap!  You can arrange them in any pattern you want and they are paintable. 

No, they aren't as durable as the real tiles but I think they will really add character to the space in the meantime, and they are affordable!  Anyone else thinking an ombre paint job???  You can find these tiles and other patterns here.

To make a "favorite day" even more favorite, Paul and his team also cased in the old doors that separated the living room from the den.  Because the den used to be an outdoor porch there was still a door frame and outdoor doors separating the two rooms.

We removed the doors and the old trim and Paul encased the new opening with fresh drywall.  So much more open!

I hope you can see some progress happening!  I will post an "in-progress" shot of all the rooms tomorrow.  The floor guys start tomorrow as well so wish us luck!