Finished Room Friday: Entryway

Our entryway probably would have been a really good place to start my Finished Room Friday posts, but it wasn't completely finished until yesterday afternoon, so you're getting it now.

We'll start our tour outside. I love our front door.

And also our welcome mat. This was my first time buying a welcome mat. I don't think we had one for our apartment (if we did, it came with the apartment and wasn't anything special) and our townhouse had one when we moved in. I didn't love it, but I never got around to replacing it. 

Open the front door and this is what you see. See what I mean about keeping our dining room table clean? If we don't use it during the day, it looks pretty good when someone comes to the door. (Even with a few toys scattered on the ground.)

Take a few steps in and to your left is the door that leads to the garage straight ahead, the half bath on your left, and a big closet on your right.

These two frames are hanging on the wall on your left as you walk to the bathroom.

When we got engaged, my friend Emily made us a How to be in Love Forever frame (pictured here). I've always loved it, but after almost 10 years, it wasn't in the best condition. I updated it a bit to go with the colors in our new house. (I hope you don't mind, Emily!) Over the years I've given my own version as a wedding gift to a handful of couples, so I just had to change the names and date on the file I have saved on my computer and print it out.

We don't have a pantry in our kitchen, so this closet has our big flour, sugar, and rice containers as well as our food storage, 72-hour kits, a mop, and a broom. That part's not too exciting.

(Other than this hook I put up to hang our fly swatter. One of my best ideas ever.)

I loved these hooks we had in our townhouse, so I decided to do the same thing here. Rather than building our own racks, I just bought some at Target and had Rog hang them. The big one was only about $20 which I figure is not much more than you'd pay to make your own by the time you buy all the hooks. The shoe basket is pretty great and when you have boys, a weapon basket is pretty necessary. I don't think we'll be needing our winter stuff too often here, so that basket is up out of the way. I love how functional this space is and I also love that it's in a closet, so we can close the door and we don't have to see it all the time.

Continuing on the tour... This is on your left as you walk to the dinning room. My Grandma Ford gave us this black frame for one of our first anniversaries. It's getting a little beat up, but I did my best to touch it up, so it could stay hanging for a few more years. It was also in our entryway in our townhouse.

This nook is perfect for our decorative table that changes every month. We painted the wall the same green we had in our townhouse. This temple frame was also a gift from my Grandma Ford. I typically don't like anything gold, but I make an exception for this frame.

I bought new H, M, E letters a few years ago, but just now got around to painting them. (Peyton helped me during our Mom-and-Peyton time.) Seemed fitting to have a new HOME for our new home. I can't decide how the H is supposed to go. This way...

Or this way?

The wall across from the nook has a picture for each time our family has grown over the years. They were all taken by Mar Del Photography. They did an excellent job with our engagement and wedding pictures, so we've continued to go to them every few years for an updated family picture and they've never let us down. I'm constantly fighting with these frames to get them to stay level, so it's fitting that they aren't perfect in this picture.

And finally here's the view from the dining room. There's our stairs and that's the toy room door.

We got this rug (and a matching one for our living room) on clearance at Lowe's. They are the perfect green, but they are also pretty hard to keep clean. I give this one a good sweep every few days and I'm always amazed how much I sweep up. For Christmas I want a steam cleaner, so I can clean this rug. (And Rog wants a blower for leaves and grass. Aren't we exciting?!)

And that's our entryway. Welcome to our house!