Our front entry, front porch, mudroom, foyer, vestibule, whatever you want to call it, went through the ringer during the reno. At the beginning, it was where we stored our tools, then garbage that was going to the dump, then paint cans, flooring, drywall, you name it!
At first we kept it really tidy. But then all hell broke loose.
Once the main areas of the house were done and our glass rails were installed, we started working on the space. We decided to keep the floor tiles because we didn't want to open up a can of worms removing old tiles and possibly having to replace the subfloor. Not to mention the potential issue of having different height floors between the adjacent office and production room. However, if I had my time back I think I would have went ahead with replacing the floor.
Back when we moved in I thought I wanted a red accent wall. I spend $50 on the high end "Aura paint" and painted the stupid thing red. If you read our blog regularly you already know I hated it and painted it white. The catch was that Chris made me live with it for six months because I spent so much on the paint. So I did, and now I really hate red.
After a trip to Florida and a visit to a Cole Haan store that had cool under lit shelves, I finally convinced Chris to build us some deadly LED lit shoe storage in the closet. He goes in to more detail about this project here. But we ended up with a pretty snazzy closet. The lights turn on/off automatically when you open/close the doors.
Like the rest of the house, we replaced the bifold closet doors with flat ones. We had to install hinges and plane down the doors a bit so they would fit the opening.
Next we moved on to the built-in drawers. Originally we had an Ikea Malm cabinet in the alcove, but it was too small for the space so we decided to do something custom. Chris built a bottom cabinet with three drawers, two deeper ones for hats and scarves and one shallow one for gloves, sunglasses, and keys. The top cabinet has one door that flips up with a hydraulic hinge. The under surface features two puck lights.
We wanted to install a full new front door, but the cost was too high. We ended up getting a salvaged door for free, but the existing side panels under the side lights still didn't really match our style. Chris had the idea of covering them over with MDF so they would have a flat look instead of a bevel. He cut pieces of 1/4" MDF to size, PL'ed them in to place, and caulked the seems. They were then primed and painted.
Up next was the backlit mirror. We ordered the mirror from Newfoundland Glass and back lit it with LED's which plug into a switched outlet. You can learn about how to install LEDs and make your own back lit mirror here.
Stick around for the full front entry before and after, as soon as we finish it and clean it up!