The “Before” House Tour {Front Door & Foyer}

Good morning! Time to get a peek inside the house!

Like I said in my last post, our front door is set back in a little alcove. The door is right against the ground, which makes finding a rug nearly impossible. We finally found one at Target that would work, but the design wore off where the storm door scrapes it.

We would like to remove the storm door at some point and get a steel door with a small window in it. I like the looks of this craftsman style. That would give us some natural light and still allow me to hide from the solicitors. =)

This little grapevine wreath is something I threw together with scraps and some greenery from Hobby Lobby a couple of years ago for Christmas. It’s not too Christmassy, and I kinda like it, so it pretty much stays up all year. I put up a different one in the fall, and this one comes back in December with a little ornament attached. The space between the doors is so small that it’s hard to find wreaths that will fit, but I should probably try a little harder to change out my seasonal stuff. Oh well!

When you step inside, you’ll see a minuscule foyer  (it’s only 4 ft. wide), a boot tray, and the end of our loveseat. Not very welcoming at the moment, right? Just don’t look down…

Yuck! Who puts carpet up against the main entrance?? We’ve tried shampooing the it, but most of the stains just won’t come up. Our next big project is learning how to install floor tile. We bought the Leonia porcelain tile in Sand from Lowes and we’re going to install it here and at the back door. You can actually see a stack of them by the love seat up there!

See the rip in the carpet? That’s where I just started tearing it up. We now have a lovely foyer full of concrete subfloor.

I would like to have some storage along the right side of this wall, but it has to be really narrow. I’m talking between 13″ and 16″. It’s hard to find any dressers or sideboards that depth, so I’m considering something along the lines of this setup by Made By Girl. We’re nowhere close to an Ikea, and I’m not fond of their shipping charges, so Garan said he’d try his hand at building cabinetry. Woohoo!

We’ll probably have a gallery wall in this space at some point, but we have some practical needs first.

This is the only before shot I have of the foyer (it’s of the missing door stop):

Ugh! The green walls! They were so incredibly dark!

Anyway, this is what we’ve accomplished in this area so far:

• Replaced the brassy doorknob with an ORB one.
• Painted the walls Light Pewter by Benjamin Moore (we LOVE this color!)
• Replaced the little doorstop thingy
• Repaired a bowed door jamb (actually, Daddy did this one)

This is what we would like to do (in no particular order):

• Replace carpet with tile (okay, this is definitely our first priority)
• Build cabinets ala Made By Girl
• Hang gallery wall of family pictures
• Remove storm door
• Replace door with windowed version
• Paint the interior of the door a happy color (muted blue-gray?)
• Replace outdoor light
• Buy or make a prettier boot tray

Whew, that’s a long list for a tiny space…this one might take us a while! Wish us luck!

xo, Amanda Marie

The “Before” House Tour {Front Entrance}

I don’t have many pictures of when we first moved in. We were moving from a basement into our first owned home (we were just a little excited to get our things out of boxes and storage!), so we waited just long enough for the carpets to be cleaned. We moved everything as quickly as we could, and for months, we just kinda shifted things around. It was not effective. Or pretty. Bottom line, most of my before pictures have our stuff in them, in various stages of “unpack and put away”.

I do have some pictures from our home inspection. In fact, I think the inspection picture of the front entrance is my only picture of how the front looked for the first few months.

Upon first glance, it doesn’t look too bad! Actually, it isn’t bad, but there were a few things that needed to change immediately. See, the doorway is set back into a really narrow alcove. Those massive bushes made it really dark and kinda creepy! I could just imagine someone hiding in them at night… *shudder* If someone did hide in them, I would have to give them props. I mean, those things were pokey! They’re almost like holly bushes, but I’m pretty sure they’re not. My daddy came by one day and chopped down all of them except the one on the far left (we left it so the front wouldn’t look so bare). Turns out, they were trapping moisture against the window and causing it to mold inside the casing. My paranoia was good for something! =)

We rounded the flower bed out to meet the walkway so it wouldn’t look so plain. Momma brought nandina bushes, lilies, daffodils, and sedum from her garden to fill in where the bushes were. Since then, she brought an azalea bush, some monkey grass, and a few little grape hyacinths.

Oh, see that lonely shutter? The other one was/still is propped up in the garage. We’ll get to it eventually!

We scrubbed the gunk off the brick where the gutter was stopped up, planted some daffodils around the mailbox, and the for sale sign came down, obviously. The only other major change has been the sidewalk. See the little narrow strip between the driveway and the walk to the front door? It’s really tiny!

Whenever it rained,  it was almost impossible to carry groceries or anything else without stepping into the grass there.  So, my parents (you will be hearing about them a lot!) helped me pour a little fan shaped concrete pad there while Garan was at work. It’s so much better now!

In the next few months, we’ll hopefully be adding some rock and plants in the front bed to fancy it up a bit. It doesn’t look too pretty right now, but once everything starts filling in, I think it will be quite lovely! =D

xo, Amanda Marie