Hi Friends,

Hope you’re all feeling back to normal after the time change this weekend. It’s so weird when it gets dark out at 5:30 pm. Makes it feel like it’s super late when I’m coming home from work. I do like that it’s light out for my morning drive though. I just can’t win. I thought I would share with you a few updates to our entryway. It’s still not completely finished, but I’ve made a lot of good progress in this space over the last couple months.

I added this little welcome center in between our front door and the door that leads out to our garage. As  you can see in the first picture, I have neglected to paint any of the trim in our front hallway because I just got so burned out on painting the first couple months after we moved in. I still haven’t fully recovered. Our little hello sign is from Hobby Lobby (side note- I just found out they are adding a store right by our house! – YESSS). The clock is Target and the mailbox is Home Goods – we actually used this to collect the cards at our wedding and now it’s being repurposed here. I think 3 of my friends now have walked in, seen this mailbox and thought that our mail gets delivered through a mail slot into this box in our entry way -I wish! It’s just a spot where I  temporarily drop the bills that need to be paid or forms that need to be filed before they make it to their final destination.

I added this coat hook strip from Target so that our jackets, keys, etc. don’t end up on the floor. One of my pet peeves about our old house was that our garage door led into our kitchen where there was no coat closet or room for hooks. If we wanted our jackets to end up in the closet you’d have to walk them through the kitchen and living room to the front closet. I’m not gonna lie, 99% of the time they ended up on the dining room table. I’m SO happy we finally have a space right when we walk in the door to drop our stuff. The picture above is of our cat, Smokey. She has a pretty short attention span so this picture is a total fluke.

I hung this gold framed circle mirror a couple months ago and ever since, it’s felt like it was missing something to go underneath. Last month I went to a vintage sale and found this shelf to fit the space! I was so excited when I got it home and it was a perfect fit on this wall – I didn’t measure it, oops. Mirror, planters, gold frame, and baskets from Target. I’m sensing a theme here… 😉 Also if you look close, I still haven’t printed a photo for this frame so it still has the stock photo inside. (No, I don’t have a little boy or a pug.)

Rug is from – you guessed it – Target! It was an item someone had purchased online but then returned to my store where it got put on the clearance shelf! Only $60.00! And I kid you not, this was EXACTLY the kind of rug I wanted in this space – material, shape and color. I love love love it!

This banister sits in the middle of our house which I thought was kind of weird at first but it’s growing on me. It was originally oak, but I painted it black to match the front door. In case you were wondering, it was a pain in the butt. I tarped and taped off the entire area surrounding the banister and used my sprayer attachment on our air compressor to paint. It was incredibly messy, and incredibly hard to get in all the nooks and crannies. I think I was doing touch up paint for 3 days because every time I walked by at a new angle or went downstairs I would notice another unfinished spot. Also, because we have vaulted ceilings, I wasn’t able to make a seal up to the ceiling and we ended up with a layer of paint dust on just about everything. My hose also broke near the end of painting so I had to do the last bit by hand with a brush. Basically, next time, I would seriously consider hiring someone to do this for me.

Thanks for reading,