Today marks guest post number two in the whole history of The Lil House That Could! Cait did a fabulous job yesterday and today we have :::drumroll::: Tabatha from Turn Right At Lake Michigan!

I could not be more thankful for this post today. If any of you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw my frantic tweets about how we struggled to give Darwin his fluids and pills last night. Quite possibly the hardest night of my life, in terms of frustration and helplessness. It ended with a trip to the vet after midnight to have them give him his pills. But! I am very happy to report that our second night as nurses was a grand success, we got him to take his pills and administered his fluids with ease tonight. There was clearly a learning curve no one told us about.

Anyway, back to Tabatha and how I should be fanning her with palm leaves for posting for me. I first found Tabatha when I saw her glorious bold purple nursery on A Brooklyn Limestone. And the nursery started as a room for her cats. Cats? Sold! Loved her immediately. She will also be sharing her entryway plans with us today!

 

Hello Lil House readers, I’m Tabatha from Turn Right At Lake Michigan, and I’m here today to help out Rebecca this week. A little about me – I’m 27, and I have five cats, two kids under three, a super-sized Chihuahua, and a husband all crammed into a 113 year old Folk Victorian home (with a whopping 1250 square feet) in Dayton, Ohio, that we’ve been renovating for the past four years. Yes, while we live in it. Yes, I take donations for therapy. 🙂

Anyway, as I understand it, we’re talking entryways this week since Rebecca has been working hard on hers, so let’s talk about my itty bitty foyer, yes?

A little background on my home – it survived the 1913 Great Flood of Dayton and was moved further up the hill afterwards (along with several other houses in our neighborhood) to create a flood plain (which later became a parking lot) to where it now resides. Somewhere in the 1960s, it was bought by a Korean war veteran and his Korean wife, and they raised four(!) daughters here, spending over 40 years in the house we now call ours. So our house had seen a whole lot of the same people for a long time.

Now our foyer is a grand 7.5 feet by 5.5 feet, and is not only the first place you enter once you come through our front door, but it’s also the gateway to the living room, the dining room, and the stairs that lead, well, upstairs, to the two bedrooms and full bath that chill up there. It’s also our shoe repository, mail sorting area, leash and key wrangler, purse/baby bag drop-off, and open-plan coat closet. This tiny space does a lot for us. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s start back at the beginning to show what we started with:

This was the front door when we moved in:

front door before
And this was the entryway “tile” put down for a yet really discernable reason:

tile in foyer before
I can be a bit of a perfectionist, so what first bothered me about the tile was that it didn’t match up with the door properly. That, and it was ugly. So the easy solution was to remove all signs of the previous occupants, paint, and cover that tile up with a rug:

foyer redux one
Which, admittedly, I was less than thrilled about. The wall color was supposed to be more grey than green, but once that happened we committed to it (even though I HATED it) and found accessories, like that indoor/outdoor mat on clearance at TJMaxx for $10, that at least coordinated.

But as time passed on, the foyer bugged me more and more. We had an unfinished wood bench I never got around to painting. The walls made me angsty. (They continued up the stairs and throughout the upstairs hall area, for reference. That’s a lot of space to hate the color of, especially in our little house.) The coat hooks we installed started to fall out of the plaster walls. The cats climbed the curtains on the door. It was all just too much.

So one day, fed up with it all (and nesting while pregnant with my now 2 ½ year old son) I unloaded the space, got out a crowbar, and tore up the tile and terrible cheap parquet flooring – to find HARDWOODS underneath:

hardwoods underneath
You cannot imagine my excitement. They were under the parquet throughout the dining room and under some vinyl tile in the downstairs bedroom as well. When we refinished those floors we did the foyer too, a nice dark chocolate almost black color, but that’s temporary – and we’ll get to that.

I ended up selling the bench on Craigslist as it was more of a dumping grounds than somewhere to put on your shoes, and I purged a great deal of our coats to keep the clutter to a minimum – or at least make more room for the baby-related clutter. The curtains have moved to the scrap pile of fabric in the basement and have been replaced with this:

front door window decal
A window decal that lets far more light in than the curtains ever did, while still allowing us some privacy. It almost looks like it should be there, right? I also frosted the windows on our tiny decorative dormer window, seen here:

foyer wall and frosted dormer
After our next door neighbor informed us he could see into our house from his upstairs window. Not awesome. But now we have a ton more natural light for such a small space, which helps it feel less cramped.

However, obviously we’re nowhere near what I hope the space can become. So I whipped this little inspiration board up for you:

foyer inspiration board
Let’s go over it, shall we?

#1: This is my inspiration photo, found on Pinterest. All of the components are Ikea, which I’m a huge fan of. However, I think I would want to add doors on the shelving units (or switch them out with shallow wardrobe units) so I could hide the mess that will inevitably form. I’m not so fond of the colors, but I can work that out later. Basically this sort of system would wrap around my dormer window, utilizing the height of our ceiling to maximize storage.
#2: I have this thing where I try to work stars into each of my rooms, however subtly. I also have a thing for mirrored surfaces. I’ve long since wanted a Moravian pendant for the foyer, and this one just takes my breath away. So does the price, for the record.
#3: Wherever the cases don’t cover, I really want to use paintable wallpaper to give more texture to the greater foyer/stairs/upstairs hall space. I also plan on adding decorative wainscoting, but that’s for another time. I’m still leaning towards a really great grey color, but I still haven’t really made up my mind. I love this damask pattern though – just the right mixture of traditional and fun, especially if I pick the right paint for it.
#4: I was shopping for tile for my bathroom (which we’re currently building) when I stumbled upon this beauty. I was considering a white-and-black combo similar to this for the foyer – the wood there isn’t in the best shape, and I think tile would not only be more practical, but more beautiful in such a small space. I love that it’s black on black.
#5: I actually own this! We picked it up at Ikea when the old mat had worn out its welcome, and I love it. Even if we did tile, we’d need something at the front door to catch all the gross that comes in on shoes. Again, love the black on black, and the pattern is subtle yet fun in a modern way.
#6: Lastly, I don’t remember how I came across this piece of carved wooden art, but it made me crack up. We’re lacking in art around here (I’ve been kind of busy making babies since 2008) and I think this would just be hilarious by the front door. Double entendres and all that. I’m not sure on the yellow (or the price) but I’m pretty sure I could make something similar in whatever shade would coordinate with what the walls end up.

Sources:
1) http://www.bhg.com/decorating/storage/mudroom/mudroom/?sssdmh=dm17.507987&esrc=nwhi021711&email=2114809685
2) http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280626072722&category=103438&_trksid=p5197.c0.m619#ht_3468wt_905
3) http://www.grahambrown.com/us/product/18628/Empire+Damask+Paintable+wallpaper
4) http://www.glasstileoasis.com/item.asp?item=15669&utm_source=Amazon%2BCSE&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Amazon
5) http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90121823#/40122561/
6) http://www.etsy.com/listing/60873299/shut-the-front-door-18×22-handmade-sign?ref=af_you_favitem

Of course, I would love any feedback you have – the foyer’s a little low on the priority list these days (have I mentioned we’re building a bathroom?) but it’s something I hope to tackle soon.

I’d like to thank Rebecca for letting me guest post for her, and my family and I send out our deepest heartfelt good vibes to her family, especially Darwin. Tell him Bailey, Max, Roxy, Nubbs, Antonia and Cheech give him all cuddles and licks and purrs (well, Cheech doesn’t purr, but you catch my drift …) and we all hope he gets better soon. And thanks to you Lil House Readers for hanging out with me today!

 

Okay seriously, my guest posters are killing me with the inspiration boards. I have never done one of those. Teach me your tricks please? My readers are getting used to this 🙂

I love the shut the front door sign (it obviously inspired this post title) and that wonderful star fixture. I’m also happy to hear that I don’t have the only cat that climbs curtains, as Macky recently pulled our dining room rod out of the wall (that’s what happens when you’re 20 lbs of cat…)

Thank you again Tabatha, isn’t it amazing how she managed to write a guest post with 2 kids and 5 cats AND a dog? I haven’t even found the time to put on makeup this week! Stop by her blog for some more from her!

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A Welcome Entry from Hernando House

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Posted by Rebecca, July 20th, 2011

My first guest poster this week is ::drum roll:: Cait from Hernando House! Cait is one of my very loyal blog friends who always takes the time to say something nice around here. We started blogging around the same time, so she holds a special place in my heart as a part of the class of 2010. Maybe someday we’ll have a 25 year class reunion and meet up at the punch bowl…

Anyway, here’s Cait with her entryway plans! (You like what I did with that title? Taking a break has made me witty… or delirious… it is questionable at this point) 🙂

Hey y’all, I’m Cait and my husband and I blog over at Hernando House. I’m so happy to guest post for Rebecca & Mike today, their blog is one of my daily must-reads! I’ve enjoyed watching their house evolve. I thought since Rebecca & Mike have recently been tackling their entryway, I’d show you my entryway.

this is actually a nightstand

Our house was built in 1955, and it doesn’t have a true entryway, at least not in the same sense as a lot of newer houses. Our front door opens directly into our library, which was the living room when the house was built. To make a “landing spot” for things we placed a nightstand next to the door and added a hook for keys, a small metal basket for outgoing mail (which was once mistaken for holy water by a friend’s toddler), a bin for shoes, a small bowl for spare change, and a rug to help define the area. To the right of the door we hung a HomeGoods mirror that I painted (Valspar’s La Fonda Grassy Knoll), and we started a gallery wall of door pictures (most of those are from Katie Bower).

I should add that the late afternoon sun made the yellow a lot more “gold”.

This worked for us for about a year and a half, but there was never really a good place for my purse or our reusable bags, we needed some more shoe storage, and during the winter our dining room chairs were constantly draped with jackets. We decided to put a console along the wall opposite the front door, and add a coat rack to the right of the door. Ever since we moved our hutch back into the dining area (which was longer ago that I like to admit to) we’ve used a couple of stools as a placeholder for our console.

one day a DIY version of the West Elm Chunky Console will go here

This is what we’ve come up with so far:

We’re planning to remove the tile and paint the wall it its own color to help define the space. I’ve been coveting this Frameless Arch Mirror from Lowe’s ever since I saw it on their website, and I’ve been thinking about putting it over the console table we build. The inspiration for our coat rack is from Kara Paslay Designs, her husband Tim made it for her, and the inspiration for the console is the West Elm Chunky console, which is no longer available. Something like this Pottery Barn Beachcomber Basket would be great beneath the console for shoes, our current bin is too small. We also need a new door chime for our doorbell, and this one from Amazon looks nice. We hope to put a wall sconce above the over the console, but we haven’t decided exactly what style yet (the one show is from West Elm).

Thanks again to Rebecca and Mike, and I hope those of you who don’t know me will stop by my blog!

Yes, go stop by her blog… now 🙂 Mike and I considered making our own version of that West Elm chunky constole when it was still around. And you know I love a good shoe basket and I’m trying to work out a solution for our own entryway. Doesn’t Cait make great moodboards? She has more… at her blog 🙂

And no, THANK YOU Cait, for giving me a few spare hours to breathe tonight!

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I Get By With A Lil Help From My Friends

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Posted by Rebecca, July 19th, 2011

I am very very happy to report that Darwin is back home safe and happy. He ran straight to his food bowl and is currently sleeping in his usual spot, next to his toy 🙂

His oncologist called him an amazing cat today, which we already knew, but to have someone who you are trusting your animal’s life with say that is very reassuring and melts my heart. After getting his updated blood work, she could not believe that he is eating, drinking and playing when he is so sick. My baby’s a fighter and I couldn’t be more proud.

He’s very happy to be reunited with his dadda, his toy, his food bowl, his water bowl and his spot in the family room… despite his little shaved legs and belly.

I’m seriously overwhelmed with all of the responses we’ve received about Darwin and I haven’t had a chance to reply to them. THANK YOU. Seriously. You all make me feel less crazy and make me feel like we’re doing the right thing for him.

I said yesterday that I’m going to be taking it easy this week, but if you miss my house rants, today (I know it’s almost midnight…) I guest posted over at Decor and the Dog!

Who wouldn’t love a blog called Decor and the Dog?? Michelle also has a new construction home and she does some amazing things with it. I couldn’t resist her offer to bring my cat-y self on over. Don’t tell my kids I crossed over for the day…

Since I am forcing myself to stay somewhat away from blogging this week (I’m busy at work, in my last week of summer classes with 2 final projects due Friday and spending time with Darwin), I am fortunate enough to have some amazing bloggers who volunteered to post for me the rest of this week.

I could not be more thankful for every single bit of this post tonight. Thank you oncologist, thank you readers, thank you Michelle and thank you to my guest posters (who will start tomorrow!) 🙂

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Feeling Empty

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Posted by Rebecca, July 18th, 2011

We took Darwin to the oncologist tonight. After discussing our options, we decided to leave him there overnight to begin chemotherapy.

There is a very small chance that he may not make it through this first round. The oncologist has had one cat that reacted badly and the chemo began to attack healthy cells. Hearing this made it extremely, extremely difficult to leave him there tonight. But we know that without trying this, he’s only expected to live several weeks. With it? He has a chance to make a full recovery. It’s going to be a very long and complicated road for us regardless, but we had to give him that chance. The form of cancer he has (renal lymphoma) is very aggressive and we didn’t have time to wait to start treatment or second guess ourselves.

Our hearts are empty tonight, missing baby D, wondering what he’s wondering about, wishing we could pick up the phone and talk to him.

I’ll probably be keeping it light around here this week. If anyone is interested in guest posting for me please shoot me an email at rebecca@thelilhousethatcould.com.

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Glossy White

5 Comments

Posted by Rebecca, July 14th, 2011

Thank you all, once again, for your kind words for Darwin. We’re all hanging in there, just taking things one day at a time. Darwin’s been enjoying his brand new toy, Larry the Lion.

He’s currently sleeping on him 🙂 Darwin also took an interest in our therapeutic painting project.

That picture was taken with my iPhone. It’s amazing what some good light will do regardless of the camera.

We’ve spent the past few days finishing up our painting. Since we only did one coat of primer, we ended up having to do 3 coats of paint to cover up the taupe we previously had on the wall! Lesson learned, but it’s finally done 🙂

We have our entryway lamp on a timer, so that’s why there is a funny contraption in the outlet. We’ve been searching for a round, textured, chunky ottoman to stick under the table to make it more substantial looking, so that timer will someday be hidden.

We also still need to change out the gray lampshade for a white one, but we haven’t had much luck with finding one of those either!

The white we used was Olympic’s Crumb Cookie, which was the closest match to the existing trim. It is slightly less yellow, though not noticeable unless you’re me or Mike. We can’t figure out if it’s just a slight difference in finish between the different brands. Regardless, not a big deal. The baseboards in the picture above are the old paint and the wall/chair rail are the new paint.

Warning: I was completely lazy and left the mop and floor cleaner in this picture. I even saw it as I was snapping pictures but overtiredness=laziness. I didn’t feel like walking down the stairs and moving it for the sake of the picture. Whoops.

Macky thinks he’s a model. He seriously loves to photobomb.

And we forgot to put the outlet covers back on upstairs, whoops!

For the Macky fans…

I love these little mittens…even when they hit me on the way down the stairs.

I still have some touch up work to do tomorrow with the taupe. Macky thought it would be funny to rub up against the baseboards minutes after I painted them last night. Black cat + white paint = no bueno. He put himself in the tub (no seriously, he loves to play in there) and I seized the moment and gave him a wipe down before he licked himself. He thought it was funny and purred and rolled over the whole time. I wish I had pictures.

And for the fans of a good before and after? Here’s the hallway several months ago…

And today…

We cannot wait to finish up our molding and add the picture frame boxes like we have in our adjoining living room!

Then we’ll get to use our new nail gun too! 🙂

Update! Had to include a picture of Darwin sleeping with his toy, because he is just too cute 🙂

Yes, Larry the Lion is buried under his paw/face somewhere.

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