I wanted to share the entryway updates that we've made to make it more functional, minimalist but still cozy. This self quarantine has me decluttering the house some more, adding and subtracting things to make the rooms more functional for our family and then decorating rooms to add the cozy, lived in feeling that we love.
I'm going to start with the last thing that we did. We added this cute, cubby shelf in the entryway, to display some of my animal collections. My mom bought this shelf for me at a tag sale for .50 cents a few years ago. I originally added casters on the bottom and drawer pulls on the side and used it to store my shoes under the bed. It's been sitting in the basement unused since we moved into this house 5 years ago. Over the weekend the girls and I took it apart, sanded it, stained the back piece, sealed it and put it back together. My husband hung it up for me and now it hangs proudly in the entryway. I love that I get to display some of the trinkets that I've collected over the years, instead of having them scattered around the house.
The girls also helped me refinish the large piece of driftwood that we now use to hang our jackets and bags. My husband and I found this piece of driftwood one day while talking a walk on the beach in Sag Harbor, NY. At the time I didn't know what I was going to do with it but it was so beautiful, I just wanted to take it home with us. The girls and I sanded it, stained it black, sealed it and my husband attached these beautiful, sturdy hooks that we purchased at Target.
Before he hung it on the wall, we all signed the back of it. I just love the stories behind the unique pieces that we have. It is the most vital piece in our entryway because it adds so much functionality, it gets used everyday by all of us. We do not have a coat closet nearby.
The chair is a $15 thrift store find from before we moved in. I purchased it when we went under contract. I painted in black and distressed the crap out of it to make it look like it'd been painted for years. The seat cushion was very thin, so I added a new cushion, batting, and the taupe vinyl fabric for easy clean ups. It can be used to put shoes on by the entryway but we really use it as extra guest seating when we have a get together.
The plant is real. I love plants and I love having them all around the house. I wish I could clone this plant 6 or 7 times because it makes everything look good, and I'd put one in every corner. The plant was in bad shape and in a broken grow pot when I found it at Lowes and the gardening associate gave me discount on it without me even asking, so that was exciting. I purchased a new grow pot under $5 bucks and then we put it inside of this gorgeous ceramic pot that my mom gave me a couple years ago. It was hiding in my shed waiting for the perfect plant.
I almost forgot to mention that we hung this cute vintage brass key holder thing for our keys. There's not much else to say about it.
All in all, this room is a lot more functional now, it also is a lot more minimal than it's ever been and I love that we didn't have to spend a lot of money to make it functional and cozy. I loved having the girls help with these small re-purposing projects, it makes all these pieces more special. They love it too because they get to use power tools. At some point we'll repaint this room and hopefully finally get to paint the trims and doors, which is something we just haven't gotten around to.
