I hope you enjoyed the exterior tour of our front entry. Now on to the interior!

This corner of our home has come a long way. Again, rehabbing the original front door was the biggest project in this space and you can read more about that here. In addition, we added weatherstripping around the door jamb to prevent drafts. The mortise handset looks just as good from the inside!

Our house doesn’t boast a foyer. The front door opens up into our living room. To carve out an “entry” I placed an oversized chair perpendicular to the door which visually separated the living room from the entryway. DIY wood shelves line one wall but don’t take up precious floor space. A durable sisal rug designates the area as an entry. I didn’t want the door to stand out in the living room so I painted it the same white as the trim.

A woven bench, petite in size, sits next to the door. It’s the perfect spot for slipping shoes on or off. It also comes in handy for boxed deliveries. The design is simple but the woven top is a nod to patterns and textures found elsewhere in our home. The wooden knobs provide a place for jackets and bags. I keep a sweater wrap here to throw on on chilly mornings. The hanging brass and string art is a fun touch.

I should point out that we typically enter our home through the mudroom at the back of the house. We keep outerwear, backpacks, shoes and other outdoor gear in there. This setup by the front door is mainly for guests or quick trips outside to grab the mail or get a kid on / off the bus.

The great thing about the coat hooks is that they have a built-in shelf which is ideal for stashing a pair of sunglasses, a set of keys or incoming mail. I couldn’t help displaying a rock Mabrey gave me and some live greenery. A framed photography print picks up on an antler theme that runs throughout the house.

A major drawback to the original entry was that it was extremely dark. Removing light-filtering screens from the trio of windows in the door let light pour in and I hung a mirror to reflect the natural light even more. It’s nice for quick once-overs, too, before heading out or answering the doorbell. I love looking into the mirror and seeing our living room from a completely different perspective. It’s kind of amusing to see our open kitchen-living space flipped around! (Sorry, I’m a visual nerd.)

The gold frame of the mirror ties in with other brass and gold elements in the room. My goal was to make the entry function with style but I didn’t want it to be a focal point. I kinda just wanted it to fall to the background.

I hope you enjoyed the tours of our little entry! It’s nothing to write home about but it works for us. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when decorating a nearly nonexistent entryway:

*Optimize floor space. Keep as much furniture up off the ground as possible to provide a clear path for traffic.

*Create a dropzone. A modest bench, some coat hooks and a shallow wall shelf do the trick!

*Less is more. Don’t go overboard with the decorating. One really good art piece is sufficient. Do add personality with one or two meaningful objects that you’ve made or found.

*Hang a mirror. It doesn’t have to be huge. A dainty round mirror suspended from a leather strap achieves the same effect as a larger, framed mirror. They both bounce around light and provide a spot for checkin’ yourself out.

*Blend well. If your “entry” is part of a larger space, decor choices should jive with the rest of the room. Repeat materials found elsewhere in the room.

Sources:

door – original, vintage
door paint – Benjamin Moore White Dove in semi-gloss
entryset – Emtek*
framed print – Minted*
wall hooks – West Elm
small concrete planter – JoAnn’s
brass and string art – DIY
bench – Target
mirror – Wayfair*

*This post was sponsored in part by Wayfair, Minted and Emtek. Items marked with an asterisk were chosen by me and kindly donated by these companies. All opinions and images are my own. See more of my entry over on Wayfair. Thank you for supporting the brands that support this blog!

For fun, a little before-and-after action…

The top photo was taken the day we closed on the house. Really, any “after” would look amazing compared to that!

images: Dana Miller for House*Tweaking

Many of you want to know what’s become of our outdoor furniture this winter. We don’t have room for it in the garage. We don’t have a shed. We don’t have an off-site storage unit.

In the fall, we arranged the sectional, chair and coffee table pieces into two rectangular shapes (kinda like a 3D puzzle), covered them with two outdoor covers and pushed them up against the back of the house under an eave. Everything sits up off the ground on the platform deck. I washed the cushion covers and sealed them in plastic bags then took them and the cushions up to the attic to hibernate for the winter.

On a tangent, you can see more of our newly organized attic here. The Home Depot contacted me earlier this year about collaborating on a storage / organization post. Seeing as how we had been living with two pieces of foam board taped over our attic access for months in order to prevent heat from escaping into the attic, it seemed like a good fit. I love it when collaborations work out that way. When they give us a kick in the butt to tackle something we should have done already. Deadlines are good motivators!

Anyhow, the outdoor sectional cushions are up in that tidy, blue-carpeted attic space waiting for spring.

Let’s get back to the sofa. (I feel like this is a very scatter-brained narrative. Steve is out of town this week and I’m running on two hours of sleep sooooo…yeah, that explains a lot.) Our hope was that the deep eave would shelter the furniture from the elements somewhat. It does okay. Obviously, snow and rain still get on the furniture but that’s where the covers come in.

We bought the covers online. I don’t remember where (Steve has all that info. I’ll ask him when he’s back.) but I do remember we opted for ones near the “high quality” end of the spectrum but they weren’t the most expensive option we came across. We figured it was worth it to protect the not-so-cheap furniture we invested in. With the way this winter has been, we’re happy with our decision.

The one drawback is that snow, water and ice tend to accumulate on the covers causing them to dip. Every few days I go out and brush them off. The worst is when it’s water or ice. Water and ice are HEAVY. I use a pitcher as a bail to scoop and dump the water. When it’s ice, I gotta put my back into it. My fear is that the weight will pull on the covers and rip them. So even though the covers are protecting the furniture, our setup isn’t completely maintenance free. Then again, it’s been some kind of winter.

You may have noticed the outdoor dining chairs hanging out under the eave as well. They’re plastic and don’t hold snow like the bigger furniture so we left them uncovered. They’re swell.

The outdoor dining table is uncovered, too. We left it open to the elements all last summer and it was fine so no cover here either. It has a slatted top so water can drain off. If anyone’s been wondering about the DIY wood art, it still looks brand new. No worries.

And now this is the end of a very boring, snowy post. Wish it was the end of a very boring, snowy winter instead.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to browse beach cottage rentals online just to torture myself a little more.

images: Dana Miller for House*Tweaking