Now that we have our main piece of furniture, it’s time to kick Project Entryway into action, and turn our attention to the walls.

I’ve had my eye on vibrant wallpaper for the space. I was smitten with one from Hygge & West, but after some calculations, even covering a small space was out of budget. (10 rolls = > $1,000!!).  So we are spending our romantic valentine’s weekend working on our first stenciling project. I love the bright blue in the image above. I’m a little nervous since it’s our first go at it, but mostly excited. Wish us luck.

When we renovated our house, we tweaked the layout, moved a few doorways, and in the case of the entryway, closed one off.

Next to the entryway was a small room that connected it to the master bedroom. The room contained two small closets, one in particular was a reach in that was two feet wide and five feet deep. Not the smartest use of space. Think of how many things would be “stored” back there, never to be seen again. So we closed the connecting door and incorporated the 2×5 closet into the entryway. This not only gave us a more spacious entryway, but a legitimate walk-in-closet for our Master.  WIN.

Welcome to our bigger, defined entryway. I was pretty excited. I had visions of a table, coat rack, mirror and darling chair in the space the closet used to be, but after living in the house for close to a year we found the space to be a black hole and not too useful since it wasn’t in the drop-zone. Coats, purses and keys would miss whatever table they were intended for and land on the couch or dining room table.

My visions of entryway vignettes, of rain boots set beside the door, trinket trays to hold incoming mail and dishes with last-minute jewelry add-ons quickly vanished. It was time to rethink the space.

While it doesn’t work for morning, noon and night work, the new space would be ideal as a transition zone. We have numerous jackets, motorcycle gear and a constant stream of items set aside for donation. As it turns out, we did need a closet there, just not the way it had been originally.

What to do when you don’t have a closet? Get a free-standing wardrobe. And the more it looks like it came out of Narnia, the better. I’ve been scouring Craigslist and found one in budget a couple weeks ago. Now that we have our main piece of furniture, it’s time to kick Project Entryway into action, and turn our attention to the walls.

Entryway Updates

• entryway inspiration
• graphic wallpaper look for less

Our fireplace mantel is up and finished (for now). We completed it just in time for the holidays and we were so happy to have a place to hang our stockings. We painted it with an oil-based paint (for durability) and finished the interior with black chalkboard paint. I eventually want to do a stacked-wood-look, but for now I’m happy. In the mood lighting of our Christmas party a few even thought it was real. Win.

Because the wall we put it on is the main walking path in the home, we couldn’t afford to push it out from the wall too far (which would have really given it a “real” fireplace feel). But we were able to afford a few inches. So we cut a 2×4 in half and stuck the pieces behind it, if we would have done any more we would have needed to find another top piece!.