The first major project: The Entryway
We are getting ready for our first major project in our new home. We have this beautiful open floor plan. When you walk in the front door you walk into a gorgeous, wide-open hallway that stretches the length of the main floor. The ceilings are massively tall and there are detailed beams running between rooms that give a beautiful visual separation to the home. It’s gorgeous and I love it.
And then after a couple of months I started to realize - although this big open hallway is gorgeous - it’s not functional. Where is the closet?! Well, it’s about 25 yards from the front door and down a separate hallway. To add to that, it’s very very very tiny. Like, we can hang about 6 coats and fit only a few pairs of shoes on the floor. That might accommodate some families just fine but for us, definately not. I have a rain coat, a winter coat, a winter liner, a hoodie and I won’t even get started on my various motorcycle jackets for different riding and weather conditions. THEN, I have my different shoes for different occasions that I like to have near the front door - such as my running shoes, my “work” shoes (for outdoor/gardening projects), my quick slip-ons if I need to run to my car or the mailbox quick, boots for taking my dog to the park and filp flops. I might just sound a bit snobbish, but this is reality for me. Guaranteed when my daughter starts walking we’ll need twice the space for just HER stuff as well!
So we came up with a temporary solution to put a storage bench from our old nursery against a wall. Two wicker baskets hap-hazardly hold our shoes. The top of the bench has become a collection point for mail, receipts, car keys, sunglasses, jackets - you name it. So we took random storage cabinet we had at the old house and put it next to the bench for extra storage. It’s a cluttered, disorganized assembly of random things with no “home” such as paperwork, locks, loose change, and various baby essentials for going out. This space drives me NUTS with how dysfunctional and cluttered it has become.
It became clear the entryway was a necessary first project for the home to help us begin organizing an everyday space that we can also fill with great design.
One obstacle with this project is the fact that 75% of our main floor is tile. The other 25% is hardwood floor. The discussion became - do you replace with ALL one hardwood, or do we just replace the tile. We talked about introducing different flooring options for areas such as the kitchen - but I felt it might be silly with so many different floorings in one wide-open area. So, the decision was made to replace all the tile with something that isn’t from 2001 (and happens to be pink).
Now, in planning the entryway we realized the RIGHT way to do things would be to replace the flooring underneath the cabinets we plan to install. Which means we needed to decide on a tile. We could either replace a small portion surrounding just the entryway, leaving the rest unfinished for who knows how long, or just replace all the tile at once. There’s no wrong way, I suppose, but let’s be honest - who wants to live in a partially finished space for an undetermined (extended) amount of time. So we bought 720 square feet of tile, moved all 4,000lbs of it from the truck to a temporary space, and I’m mentally preparing for the daunting task that busting out all the old tile and laying new tile will be.
The honest truth is - I do love tile work.
All the other entryway items have been ordered- unfinished cabinets, hardware, shiplap, lighting, and a topper. Stay tuned for some DIY how-to videos on the process!
-J
