Weekend Entry Makeover

Hello! If you have been following along, you have read previous posts about our house and some of the projects we have completed. I wanted to share a quick makeover project that I recently completed in our entryway. For a lot of homes, the entryway is the first impression of the rest of your space but it also has to be functional. I think this can make an entry area one of the more challenging areas to design. Also, since it is not an area where we spend a lot of time, other rooms take precedence and entries fall to the bottom of the list. We have been in our house almost 4 years and I am just now completing this project. Hopefully, my project can help generate some quick ideas that can be completed in a weekend but still make a big impact.

Our house is a little odd in that we technically have two “front doors”. People are often very confused with which one to use. Before we purchased our home, the previous owner did a major addition that included keeping the original front door and creating a second entry with double doors (this creates the confusion). The entry with the double doors has an actual entryway space, and the other door leads to a hallway, so we like to use the larger doors with the entryway to enter the house. I have tried using planters and rugs to make it more obvious which doors we use as the entry. It has helped a little, but people still come to the side door about half of the time. :)

These are our two entry doors. The single door is the original entrance the the home.

Our house is a California Ranch style and was built in 1957. The entryway area and the rest of the addition were done some time in the late 70’s - 80s. Underneath some bad design choices over the years, the house has a strong Mid-Century feel. We have been working to bring the original look and feeling back, in an updated way. The addition was done more in an 80’s design style and I have been working on changing what I can to make the two sides feel like the same house.

This is how the entry looked when we walked through the house for the first time.

This entry space was formerly an area the led between the house the garage, but also to the laundry room. When the addition was built, they made the double doors from where a single door was and added the archway that leads into the kitchen and dining rooms. When the house was built, that wall was open. They also had these weird, tile, built-in pedestals made. Our guess if that part of it could be used as a bench and the other two parts for display? This tile was only used in the entry, and did not extend to other areas of the house, so it felt very separate.

I immediately hated the archway and the tile. Generally, I like archways, but not for this house. It is the wrong style and feels strange with the angles and straight lines used throughout the rest of the house. To me, the tile looked like vomit and I couldn’t wait to get rid of it. Some parts of this makeover, like the flooring, took more than a weekend. I thought I would have to wait awhile to get rid of the tile or change the archway, and I had accepted that.

Close up of the tile and some carpet that was in another room.

However, shortly after moving in we had a house flood, and had to replace a lot of flooring. We decided to bite the bullet and lay all new flooring through the house at the same time, including the entryway. Once the new flooring was laid, the impactful pieces were quick enough to complete over a weekend.

Below are some more pictures of how the entry looked when we moved in.

Before the flood and new flooring, the first and main problem was that this space was not functional. There was no storage, no place to put coats, shoes, keys, etc., so I started working on that. I focused on things that could be easily changed, like the lighting. I changed out the sconces for more Mid-Century looking ones. The walls were painted and the shiny gold door hardware was switched out for black. I also took the blinds off of the doors and added a stick-on frosted panel to each side. Then, I cut diamonds out of the frosted panels to let more light through and added some vinyl starbursts that I ordered from Etsy (The seller is PMVinyls and they are awesome!).

These are the lights we chose.

Here is the door with the frosted panels and starbursts.

I added a place for mail and asked my husband to build me a little shelf for some shoe storage. We installed a board under the double scones where we could anchor hooks for coats and bags. I got a few baskets and we purchased a cube storage unit for a “catch all” area. Added a mirror and a few decor details. It was much more functional but still felt lacking to me and I still hated the arch.

I decided to add some wallpaper under the board for the hooks. Just in the square behind the coats and bags, to add some pattern and to add some durability. I started to notice that the white paint was quickly getting pretty scuffed up. I chose a peel and stick wallpaper from Target. It was so easy to hang and I love how it turned out! We hung a special piece that my mom handmade for our wedding over the hooks and added a bench. My husband made this bench out of one of his old snowboards. These special pieces really warmed up the space and made it feel more like us. I love seeing them when I walk through the door.

This is the piece that my mom made.

This is the bench that my husband made.

I was really happy with how this space turned out. We had changed it pretty dramatically from where we started, but the archway still bugged me. My husband was not excited about the idea of opening up the wall to remove the arch. I sat with it for awhile and decided to highlight it, in a way that made it work better with the rest of the house, rather than just trying to ignore it. I ended up painting black around the entry side and inside of the arch. It completely changed the look and I love it so much more now! Paint was much less expensive than construction, so double win.

Before and after below

Thanks for reading and following along! Let me know what you think of the how the arch turned out and if you hate the idea of it in this house as much as I do, haha!