Acre House Entryway Before + After

I really came to love the split level home we fixed up before we moved here.  However, I was never very fond of it's entryway.  It was tiny and felt very awkward when letting visitors in.  One of the many pluses to this rambler is that we can invite people in with room to spare.  While this space may seem very common to some, the openness of this entry feels like a new luxury to me.

The existing flooring was made up of newer carpet and linoleum.   I know it totally looks like wood or laminate in the picture, but it's not.  The variety of flooring this house had, made it feel choppy to us.  So within the first few months, we tore out all of the flooring in the main living areas.  We replaced it with a water proof laminate found at Home Depot.  A couple of the other things we did right away in this area, was new paint (Dolphin Fin by Behr - still a favorite of mine) and we replaced the entry light fixture.

After fresh paint, new flooring, and a new light, my husband installed pine tongue and groove planking just to this one wall here. 

Okay, so this is real life when you're moving in and renovating at the same time.  It's a beautiful mess, but it's real.  I loved how the planking turned out.  So pretty.  I ALMOST considered leaving it raw and unpainted.  But I'm a white and gray decor kind of girl, so the final decision was to paint it white.

 Here we are today.  All moved in and this space now feels more "us".

Here's another glance from a slightly different angle.  Sorry for the blurry picture.  I got a new camera for Christmas and I'm still struggling with how to use it.  Sometimes what looks like a crisp picture to my eye when I'm taking the picture, isn't really so crisp.  I've got some learning to do. :)

I reused these hooks that used to hang in the entry in our old house.  They are the perfect combination of nice to look at and useful.  Lately I've been learning something about myself and decor.  If it can be BOTH pretty and functional, I love it!  Sometimes I have a hard time buying things that are just for looks. Not that I never do, but I like the simplicity of pretty + useful.

 

I recently purchased this jute rug from Rugs USA.  I love jute rugs for the entry because they can take a beating and this area gets a lot of traffic.  My husband built the bench out of some old wood we had and some industrial metal legs I bought on Amazon.  Another tiny update to this area was some paint on the front door.  I painted it black, but this section of the house doesn't get a lot of natural light.  So I may need to rethink the black and go with something a shade or two lighter.  We'll see.

 Hello!

I tried to be intentional with the things I hung on the walls in here.  We go in and out the front door several times a day.  The first things you see when coming in are a picture of Christ, a picture of the Prophet (Thomas S. Monson - President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and one of our favorite quotes from the Prophet. "May we ever choose the harder right, instead of the easier wrong."

 

I also placed a small clip board in the window sill, next to the front door.  I can clip different scriptures here throughout the year that we are trying to learn or memorize.

The last thing I hung in the entry was this oval mirror.  Just in case we want to glance at ourselves before we head out for the day.  This mirror has some sentimental value.  It used to be bright yellow and hang in my room when I was a baby.  It made it's way into my younger sister's room when I was growing up too and then finally landed in my lap again.

This house has really good bones.  We've only made changes to it that made it feel more like "us" rather than the previous owners.

Next week I'll try to share some updates we made to the family room.  Until then, have a good day and stay warm!  Our winter, so far this year, has been brutally cold!