Good morning everyone.
Its high time I dusted off this microphone and shared..... something.
Anything really.
To say that life has gotten a little crazy is a vast understatement.
This whole mom-business owner-maker thing is a giant pile of Jenga just waiting to crash but so far we are holding it up there and steam trooping right along and still keeping our sanity. [that may be an overstatement.]
Having said that Trevor and I had birthdays recently [we are one day apart, technically since I am a leap year baby, 3 years out of 4 we are the same day] and instead of buying a gift I asked for my front hall to be repainted. Since I am fortunate enough to have a husband that enjoys painting he obliged. Now I get a lovely white front hall before and after to share with you guys.
Indulging in my love of white walls to show off our collections I wanted to get rid of the dark grey that has been here for years.
I used my go to white in this house of White Dove by Benjamin Moore to replace the Rockport Grey which you can see below. The space for a front hall is not small but it was just starting to feel dark all the time and I wanted light. Dark walls of course becoming a thing now in interior decor so of course I zigged and went with white walls.
I like to do the opposite. Although I did contemplate painting a wall black in here.
i changed up this corner vignette in the front hall a bit. i moved the african bronze statue into the front hall out of the living room and planted her head with jasmine. i am really loving the whimsical effect of "hair" it is having. the brass antelope weighs a billion pounds but he is looking quite stately watching over everything. his name is edward for those asking. [and he is available through my shop if you were also going to ask that]
we left the barrel island because we love it but i removed the mannequin and some other items in here to flatten this area out and "feel" like there is more room.
instead of having the subway scroll on that wall by the door, i moved part of our collection of antique group war photos to this wall. the subway scroll was getting curled from the wind and us walking by all the time. i used french cleats to hang these photos so they never look crooked. definitely a bit more expense than nails but worth the mental frustration of fixing the pictures daily.
my spring eclectic vignette. a huge terrarium, a modern lantern and some kitschy vintage bird statues.
one of my favourite new plants. the calathea lancifolia or "rattlesnake"
and my favourite new part of the makeover. we have had a crate shelf here for a few years and although i really loved it, it was a dark look for our stuff AND is was a fur sucker upper.
the bottom shelf needed constant vacuuming and i guess i knew because it wasn't attached to the wall eventually a little girl might try to pull that sucker over.
we used plain steel L brackets and painted them black and attached live edge boards we cut and i treated with beeswax. the look is simpler, cleaner and suits our space.
i did jump on the black door trend in this room. i debated how many to paint and what parts to paint. in this front foyer there are 4 sets of doors. patio doors, front door, closet and door to the garage aka my workshop. i decided against the front door as franklin tends to jump up when we get home and i don't really want to constantly be touching it up and we also didn't paint the closet door as i wanted the focus to be the shelves not the door.
you can see a quick phone pic below before we painted the patio doors black. i love the contrast it is adding and your eye really leads outside now.
the best part about these shelves is the collections they hold. i have a pretty large flower frog collection going and most of it lives here now. we have bits from travel and our african pieces as well.
and i also snuck a newborn foot mold of emma's onto the shelf........
emma's foot and a female tigers foot. good company together.
Thanks for stopping by and i will try not to leave so much time before my next visit. I actually have some great spring photos of the shop to share soon.
As always,
Meg
