Our Entryway

I think Spring is beginning to be in our near future! This winter has been a cold one, and now here comes the mud. Speaking of mud, our entryway got a good cleaning this past weekend. We don't have a 'mudroom' per say, but our entryway is the catch all to our house. Unfortunately, it is the same room that we enter from the garage and the same room that our front door opens up to when our guests walk in. Having 5 people's shoes, coats, backpacks and everything else it can be a nightmare to keep clean.

I would LOVE to have a fancy dancy entryway/mudroom that had one of these babies in it!! With a cubbie for every person, it would make this momma happy!!

(link)

But for now we make due with what we have. I put a couple nails on the sides of an old antique cabinet to hang coats and snow pants up on, and in the inside of the cabinet it holds our shoes.

Last year about this time we freshened up the whole inside of the house with a new paint job. The walls going up the stairs were gross, and that is putting it nicely, they were dirty, disgusting!

Can't believe I showed that picture, but it was over 10 years of wear and tear, soooo they got this paint job! I walk out of our bedroom every morning to this view.

The walls look TONS better. Our entryway is in the basement and you walk up stairs to our main level. This is the view when you walk in and look up.

This is the view of when you look straight forward when you walk in our front door.

We have a bathroom, laundry room and our master bedroom down stairs. The door on the left is the bathroom and the laundry is straight ahead. This is what the front door looks like, coming from the laundry room.

Some people perhaps wouldn't like a basement bedroom, but we love it. It is a very large room and we have an awesome walk in closet. Our room also has a very large window so it doesn't feel like we are in a basement.

These photo's are looking down from upstairs.

These are photo's when just getting to the top of the stairs.

I showed you our living room shelves.

It is crazy how a little paint can completely give a space a face lift! Along with a pop of color, notice I have a brown, orange and blue wall all in the same room. It may not be everyone's style, but I love color and going all neutral would be way to boring for me to handle. Maybe someday, but for now I will enjoy my touches of neutral with my pops of color.

Until next time,
Andrea

Living Room Update and Shelf Styling

Hello! It has only been well over a year since I have posted. In the past year we had baby girl number 3 in May 2012. We named her Bristyn Kay...she is now going on 18 months!! Meanwhile, our 3 bedroom house become wayyyy to small! So we turned it into a 4 bedroom home. We converted our basement family room and office (junk room) into a master bedroom and walk in closet. Now all our girls each have their own rooms and we haven't regretted losing a family room. My husband lost his man cave though :( but it was the extra space we needed to make our home more fuctional.

So with the whole living room swap we brought our basement couch upstairs to our main living area. It isn't the style of couch I would of necessarily bought for the space, but it has ended up working out perfect! My husband and I each get a rocking chair that reclines and the girls have room to sit also...and the darker brown is way better color to keep clean verses our white couch we used to have.

 

Our current set up in our living room

 

 

If you can't tell...I LOVE color! My husband helped me build those ledge shelves. They were Pinterest inspired.

 

 

http://www.shanty-2-chic.com/2012/01/20-shelves-anyone-can-build.html

 

 



She used different sized wood for her shelves. We used 1"x2" for the front lip, 1"x6" for the bottom, and 1"x3" for the back part. Mine are 9ft long. I stained them using Minwax Dark Walnut.We also did screw in the bottom just for extra support versus only using nails.

 

After about six months of them being empty or with random decor on them, I finally got them decorated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We will start at the top left of the shelves with the vases and the circle print. I got those all free from co-hosting a Signature Home party. I usally am not a huge "circle" fan, but I love the colors in that print.

 

 

 

On the far right of the top shelf is my Gustad sign. Once again I got the idea from www.shanty-2-chic.com. I actually made a Family version originally like this one below.

 

http://www.shanty-2-chic.com/2012/03/diy-wooden-family-sign.html

 

 

Some friends and I get together about every 6ish weeks and we have Pinterest parties. We each host and pick a project and this was my project....it only took me forever to pre-fabricate all 7 signs, so all the ladies had to do was screw in the bolts! But it was fun and totally well worth all the effort! At the party one of the ladies said it would of been fun to have done our last names...and soooo I made another one and did our last name!

 

 

It adds a nice personal touch to our home. Next is the bottom shelf. On the left is just an old antique ceiling tin that I painted green and used magnets to attach a picture to it. I don't have a close up picture of that. Next is the round red wood shim mirror.

 

 

All the mirror is made out of is plywood cut in a circle...with large wood shims glued on top of the plywood, cut off the raw edges with a jig saw, painted it red and added a table mirror from Hobby Lobby.

 I love how it turned out! This below piece is from Pier 1.

 



It is the perfect size and it pulls all the colors together. I also got the multicolored pillow on the couch from Pier 1.

 

Overall, I am pleased with how the whole space turned out. I am excited to post the other changes we have made throughout the house. At the end of the day, it is a happy space to relax in.

 

 

 

--Andrea