Entry Way Progress

You guys....I feel like I am a bit of a floundering blogger these days.  Winter is kicking. my. butt.  Big time! It started with the time change and I feel like for the last couple of weeks I haven't been able to get my feet back under me.  We are about 2 feet deep in snow and have been shovelling, shovelling, and shovelling.  I have good intentions of taking project pics, but usually by the time I think about it, it's already dark outside.  And we all know dark outside = not so great pics.  Anyhow, the good news is that we have made some pretty decent progress on our entryway.  The bad news is that I seem to have lost a bunch of my 'before' pics and I pretty much forgot to take any in-progress photos.  But that's ok, right?  Yes, I will tell myself it's ok.

So, without true 'before' pics, here's sort of what the entry looked like before we started our work on it last week.

The rug (from Ikea) is the one addition to what it really looked like when we moved in.  

On the other side of the opening to the living room (on the right), was a built in desk.

Don't ask what that is on top of the desk. It's play-food, but I have no idea what it's supposed to be. Yes, I know what it looks like. I think it might be a baked potato.  Anyhow, I had originally thought I'd keep the desk and work with it, but then one day I just got completely sick of it and decided to take my pry bar and go to town.

It didn't go so well.  I couldn't make the darn thing budge even an inch.  I had to admit defeat and wait for Mr. Swell (who of course removed it with 2 little taps....mostly because I had already loosened it for him).

Let's also talk about trim.  The trim in our house was something else.  I believe it's called 'special of the week'.  I am pretty sure the previous owners bought whatever trim was on sale at the time. The profile didn't matter.

Case in point...

Baseboard as header. Yup. Awesome.

See the thermostat in the picture above?  When we had the alarm system installed, we received a new thermostat, and in one actual clear thought (or maybe it was my Mom's idea, I can't remember), we asked them to move the thermostat to the other side of the wall.  Brilliant! So now it's on the wall in the living room, and all we had to do was patch the hole.

Ok, fast forward a few months, and the entry now looks like this.

It's a little bit of progress!!!  

The first thing we did was rip down all the trim and paint the walls.  The colour is Benjamin Moore Baby Fawn - the colour throughout our house.

The next thing was to put up the beadboard.  When we removed the built in desk we were left with giant gaping holes.  We could have patched them, but it would have been major.  I wanted something to separate the entry from the rest of the house anyhow, so beadboard solved both our problems.

We used the plank style boards that were already pre-primed.  

Mr. Swell did all of the work, so really, let's say that's why there aren't any progress pics.  It's quite an easy process though. Put the baseboard up, glue the planks on the wall, add some trim to the top and then a little ledge.  Fill thole holes, caulk the joints and paint.  

We bought the top moulding made specifically for this type of board.  It has a special little lip that lets it cover the top edge.  This helps so that everything doesn't have to perfectly straight at the top.  Then we added a piece of 1/2 x 1 1/2 pine to the top to make a little ledge. 

I need to go back in and cut in with the wall colour one more time to make everything nice and crisp.  I find the caulking always messes things up a bit and requires a bit of touch up, but it's better to deal with that than have big gaps between the moulding and the wall. 

Our antique sewing machine sits where the built in used to be.  Much better, and it's just the right size to hold all of the junk we drop when we come in the door, plus still have room for a few pretty things.

Also, please note the new header on the living room doorway that is NOT baseboard.  :)

We haven't done the casing around the door because we are getting a new door and side-light.  The new windows upstairs are slated to be installed the first week of December, and with it will come our fancy new door!  I am in the middle of picking out door colours, which is always a bit of a stressful activity on its own.

But back to the entry. The other big change is the light.  We went from a basic boob light, to a fancy new light.

It's from Lowe's, but I cannot for the life of me find it online so that I can link to it for you.  It was originally a dining light that was supposed to be on a long pole from the ceiling.  We did a bit of a farmer fix and removed the pole so that it now hangs only a couple of inches from the ceiling.

I especially love how it looks at night. 

I think it's going to look really nice with the new door that has some glass in it. 

So there you have it. A tiny bit of progress in the front entry.  Although I really like what we've done, it's all feeling a little formal and granny-ish to me right now, so I need to add some modern touches.  It's that part of the DIY process where you just have to have faith that it will all come together.

I'll be back on the weekend with The Week's End and then again on Monday with a holiday wreath using some seriously beautiful ribbon from May Arts.