Entryway Makeover & a (late) Mini Xmas Decor Tour

This update has been a long time coming! When we first moved into our home, the formal entry way’s walls and ceiling were a stark and cold white.

Before we moved in:

Here is our VERY plain entryway a year after we moved in (you can even see the paint sample on the left, hah):

While I changed my plans of a dark green in the dining room, I did want to still go with a warm green color in the adjoining entry way. I chose Benjamin Moore’s lovely Fairmont Green HC-127.

The new paint color is a nice middle-hue forest green – not too dark or light. It’s a bit difficult to find a good true green that isn’t bright and gaudy, or that doesn’t look somewhat blue, brown, or gray in some lights. If you want to go a shade lighter, I’d recommend Clearspring Green HC-128.

In this room we did actually hire a painter friend, as Karl and I both had no desire to break our necks trying to paint our 2-story entryway. Not to mention that it can feel dang good to let someone else do the work for once!

The color goes so well with the stained trim in the room; really brings out the woodwork.

We also gave the ceilings a much-needed paint job with a soft white that makes the whole room feel so much more cleaner, as the paint from before was beginning to look dingy.

Our friend did an awesome job, and man does it change the feel of the room the moment you walk in!

Such a nice difference from before!

Recently in late November I scored this amazing antique velvet chair for the entry way ($45!) at the same auction house that I got my dining room buffet. It has some of the most intricate wood carvings I’ve ever seen.

I used our newly acquired treasure to take baby girl’s Christmas card pictures this year. :)

Yes, I know I’m rather late to the game as far as Christmas house tours here in blogland, but hey, better late than never?

I didn’t use this one for the Xmas card but I still find it funny…

I’m so pleased with the tree I got last year for the entry way that this year I got a second of the exact same tree to put in our dining room, only this year I got it for $10 cheaper because it was the display model (these trees go so fast each year! The sales clerk literally had another person try to take the box as she was taking down the display model for me to buy!).

It’s a cashmere pencil tree (from Michaels) and it looks so real! Despite being slim, it appears very full, comes pre-lit, and doesn’t take up much room – I absolutely love it!

I may have started on a dangerous path to becoming a crazy tree lady.

Searches for natural-looking garland to hang on our stairs turned up empty for me this year because all the ones I inspected were either too fake looking, ugly, or had glitter. Boo.

Mini Rant: Can I just say how ridiculous it is to try and find anything Christmas related that does NOT have glitter?! I’m a staunch glitter hater. It gets everywhere. I have construction dust doing that already in my house. #glitterisajerk /endofminirant

In other news, a quick 2017 review: most of the year we concentrated on our main level rooms. Lots of progress in living, dining and entry way rooms, as well as some random projects that really helped make the house feel more like “ours”. I’m without a doubt most proud of how far the dining room has come this past year.

A water disaster setback in the kitchen got us nice new floors sooner than expected, and the walls were painted, but we certainly have our work cut out for us figuring out how to configure our future kitchen’s cabinets and appliances. We’ll need y’all’s input for sure.

2018 is looking like we’ll be concentrating a LOT on the kitchen and our upstairs bedrooms. Not to mention, fixing up our front porch so that it doesn’t keep making that side of our house look abandoned. Likely lots of other smaller projects will be thrown in for good measure to keep up our edge of being slightly insane (like anyone living in a fixer upper, you need more projects than you can humanely handle – it’s a requirement so you won’t be accused of being a poser).

Pumped to have you all with us in the new year! Here’s to 2018!