Front Hall Reveal

Finally the moment you've all been waiting for... the front hall revealed!  Remember what it looked like before?

That's a LOT of green! 

After we planned and installed molding and painted the walls you saw the HUGE improvement, but after the light was installed, the mirror was hung and the new mirrored closet doors were up the room looked so much more modern and bright.

I appologize for the night pictures, especially since the increased brightness during the day is so wonderful!  But we do what we have to do... after all that planning the room is finally done, and I couldn't wait a second longer to share it with you!!

In an effort to keep things organized we have a cute little dish for keys and a tray for mail.

Also, I love this picture that I bought at an art fair, its actually made with embroidary thread!  It has an amazing shimmer up close... photos don't do it justice.

I also bought that cute basket under the table for collection of odds and ends that seem to always accumulate in the front hallway.  That way we can keep it off the floor and off the table.  Messy tables drive me insane!  I orginally had the cute basket that I found on a trip to Value Village that I told you about before, but I thought it was too small, this one works much better and I found it at Winners for only $12.

So there it is!  Our new front hallway.  I think that visitors will feel much more welcomed and I know that I am proud to answer the door and invite people in.  So come on in and stay awhile... if you missed any of the adventures along the way check out how the front hall went from before to after.

Linking up!

Closet Doors and Kissing Frogs

I talked about how much I hate our closet doors before and how I wanted to replace them with mirrored doors to add more light to the hallway. 

I tried to find some used doors online (Craig's List and Kijiji) for forever awhile without success.  If you need some guidance on how to post items on sites like Craig's List to get them sold, check out my tips.  Let's just say the whole "kiss a bunch of frogs before you find a prince" thing applied.  Then finally we found some that had potential... $85 and they were the right size, they were gold (princely?), but I thought I could probably spray paint them, however they were also pretty beat up (prince after a sword-fight?  I think I'm losing my metaphor here...).  The big setback was that they didn't come with with the hardware and tracks needed to install them.  We went to HD (our second home) to see if we could find the hardware that we needed to use our existing tracks with the doors or new tracks that would fit the old hardware on the doors.  Long story short... we didn't.  We got to HD and while looking for hardware we discovered that they had interior doors on sale, we had a quick look and found exactly what we were looking for.  We got our brand new all hardware included mirrored doors for just over $100.  The posting for used doors was asking $85.  For an extra $15 or so it was well worth the brand new shiny easy-to-install solution.

We even managed to transport them home on my trusty steed Jetta.  That's right, we fit the 30" x 80" doors in the trunk (with the seats folded down).  Mine's not quite this shiny...

I love that car!  The trunk is huge!  Well... don't get me started on my Volkswagen love... I could go on and on...

And we lived happily ever after with our lovely new closet doors.

I *heart* Spray Paint

So I may have a new obsession... spray paint.  It is amazing!  If you haven't tried it yet... Do it!  Just to warn you... it is addictive.  You've been warned.

After my unbelievable first spray paint success with the front hall light fixture.  I decided to tackle some other ugly ducklings and turn them into swans.  Here are some of my recent transformations.

Vent Covers
Before

After

Central Vacuum Outlets
Before

After

Hinges (these were shiny gold brass before... too ugly to photograph... plus I forgot.)

Ceiling Fan (believe it or not this fan was sponge painted green on all the metal parts... even on the arms.  It was horrifying.  Now it's all better with lovely satin nickel spray paint.)

Seriously, go get some spray paint and PAINT SOMETHING!  It is fun, addictive and makes a huge transformation.  I love the Rustoleom brand spray paint that I used for all these projects because the trigger is easy to use and you don't have to worry about getting paint on your "trigger" finger, but it does cost a bit more.  You could just use any regular can of paint and wear gloves.  Oh and a little tip... baby oil is great for getting spray paint off your skin, works like a charm.  Happy painting!