Creating an Entryway When There Was None

So, plans have evolved quite a bit since we began working with Tony, our architect, a little over a year ago. We realized that we had expanded the back of the house to include a large coat closet (which we turned into our pantry) and mudroom type area near the back door; however, we did not think about the current functionality of this plan. The plan will hopefully work nice for the future. You know, in a few more years when the backyard is nicely landscaped with a deck and when we've updated our garage to actually fit one of our cars. Perhaps then once we are primarily entering through the back door, the plans we had Tony draw up will work for us. In the meantime, I wanted a better solution for our current, enter directly into the living room, plan.

Mostly, I just wanted a way to easily store shoes and jackets without it being a complete eye sore. I had my heart set on this awesome shoe dresser from Ikea (seen on another favorite blog, I Heart Organizing). I was all set to head out the door to Ikea, but realized that with out entryway (or lack there of) it just wouldn't make sense. The feng shui would be completely off. It would have felt so awkward to walk in the door and then have to walk around the shoe storage thingy. This is when I started to think of other options. I may be quite the linear thinker, but every now and then I can do a little outside the box style thinking and come up with something awesome.

Source

Since the hubby can pretty much create anything that I think up (I know ladies, calm down, he's all mine!), I returned to our original idea of creating a separation, a divider of some kind, in between the doorway and the rest of the living room. The room is not that large to begin with, so a little part of me was nervous to take away square footage, yet I couldn't shake that good ol' cliche, "less is more" and decided we were on the right track. Last year, during the thick of the remodel, we picked up this baby at a second hand store and planned to sand and paint it as a small room divider. Since I really wanted a way to corral all our shoes (I love my hubby, but I am constantly tripping over his damn shoes. Ok, to his credit, Charlie our dog has now taken up the habit of picking up shoes when someone comes over and he gets excited and we haven't figured out how to train him to put them back!), the divider no longer seemed appropriate.

Our Second Hand find!

That's when Phil and I worked together to design a half wall with a built in bench. Because Phil is so amazing, he had the wall built almost as quickly as we had taken to design it on paper. Now when you enter the house you will have a place to sit and take off your shoes (and then a place to hide them away...I'm thinking cute baskets) and a place to hang your coat and purse and scarf and mittens (Oh, winter in Seattle!). Phil still needs to trim the top of the half wall and paint or stain the bench seat and trim. We need to put up cute hooks on the entry wall and I'd like to find a cute system for mail and to hang our keys.

Already it feels like a huge improvement. Already, less space does feel like more. I have big dreams for updating the furniture in the living room (I'm thinking light and airy. White and grey furniture with a sisal rug. I want it to match our beachy feeling landscaping out front. Stay tuned!

The Entryway coming together

Created more distinct separation between the entry and the bedroom/bathroom area

Defined shoe storage space! Baskets to come!

Mail drop