A good entryway should be functional and attractive, at least according to what I’ve read. Ours, unfortunately, was neither. I’m terrible about taking “before” pictures, but this might give you an idea.
(Pardon the cavernous hole on the left side — that’s the library, and hopefully the next room to get a makeover.)
It’s hard to tell from this picture, but that is not a lovely shade of green on the wall. It’s actually quite hideous. In fact, I think that is Evan’s favorite part of the entire makeover: to be rid of that green. Of course, having a place to actually store our shoes isn’t bad either.
The first phase of this project took place in late November, when I painted our badly faded front door.
I’m really not opposed to green as a color, I promise. The red is just so perfect with the stained glass!
We decided to move the existing shoe cabinet to our closet, since it really wasn’t working in the entry. Important lesson for me: just because something seemed like a good idea doesn’t mean it really is. And if it’s the one thing that is holding you back, try taking it out of the picture. When you don’t have to mentally plan around it, you just might come up with a better plan.
The other snag we kept running into while designing the space had to do with the door placement. The door opens nearly flush with the wall, and the stained glass is mounted on the inside. This means that coat hooks, a bench, etc won’t fit behind the door. In fact, coat hooks would probably destroy the glass. I was stumped by this for a long time, until I happened across a photo (thank you, Pinterest!) of a similar setup with a mirror hung on the wall behind the door. Ta-da!
We figured out a shelf and bench that would fit on that wall (more about those pieces later), chose a warm gray for the upper part of the walls (white on the bottom), and jumped right in…
Most of the painting was done late at night after the kids were in bed. I’m sure the neighbors were curious!
And the (mostly) finished space:
We still plan to add a low coat rack (with fairly shallow hooks) behind the door for kids’ coats.
Sources:
Wire shelf: World Market
Bench: Amazon (we did have to drill new holes for the shelf inside, as the baskets were a hair too tall)
Wire/canvas baskets: Walmart
Mirror: Craigslist
Rug: Goodwill, but originally from Target
A few more “after” shots…
Of course there are still a few details to finish, but overall we are thrilled with how it turned out!