So Much Better

A long long time ago I posted a rant about the light fixtures in my house.  Ever so slowly, I'm replacing them with ones that I love.  Finally, FINALLY, I found the perfect pendant for my entryway. 

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I love that it's casual, relaxed, and fun.  I love that it's different from what other people have in their houses.  I love that it projects the light down to the front door not out into the living room and hall.  And... I love that the white finish allows it to blend into the decor so that you don't always see it from the living room.  I stumbled upon Barn Light Electric and fell in love.  Not only with this light fixture-- but pretty much everything on the site.  There were several pendants that would have worked but in the end I decided to go for the Barn Light 16" Deep Bowl Vented Pendant.  They had dozens of different finishes to choose from-- I chose white-- of course :)

I felt like I was taking a bit of a risk ordering a light fixture from an online store-- what the box arrived and it was all wrong?  But, the risk definitely paid off this time around.  I'm thinking that I'll be doing a little more shopping on Barn Light Electric's site in the future.  Go check it out!

And... how about a before picture?  Just because it's nasty :)

Thank goodness those curtains are gone!!

The Stairs

Can you tell that I'm starting to run out of rooms to blog about?

Our entryway is probably my least favorite room of the house... because it's so incredibly tiny.  Picture Doug and I struggling to enter the house with the kids, our bags and Emerson's carseat while trying to kick off wet boots, shrug off jackets, and not bump into each other.  Meanwhile, Caleb has found the light switch for our exterior lights and is flicking them on, off, on, off.... sending an SOS message to the entire neighborhood... the Toews family is home!  Much frustration has been expressed during these episodes, as can be imagined.  But, even though our entryway is not great from a practical standpoint, it does LOOK better nowadays thanks to a much needed makeover.

Here are some of the before pictures...

Wow.  Now there's an ugly room.

The carpet on the stairs had seen better days.  During the pre-renovation days we let Caleb run around in his boots... and apparently nothing else.  It was a hot day.

Today, the entryway looks much better .  We started by painting and ripping the nasty carpet off the stairs.  Then we couldn't decide what to put back onto the stairs.  We debated between hardwood and carpet for several months... meanwhile had bare plywood for stairs.  That was a dream come true with a 2 year old just learning to walk up and down stairs on his own.  Finally, we opted to go for the carpet... even though I'm not really a fan.  In the end it's the safest option for kids... and it was a kind of nice to hire someone to finish the stairs rather than do it ourselves for a change!  We also added style and rail wall panelling to the stairs and entryway to give the room a bit more interest.  Here's the one side of the stairs...

And the other side.

Laying tile on the landing would have probably been the most durable option, but we had a couple of extra boxes of laminate so we decided to just go with it.  I put down a pretty large seagrass mat by the door and it's protected the floor really well.  When it came time to pick the color of carpet for the stairs, I decided to go for a color that picked up the same natural looking tones of the seagrass mat instead of matching the grey-ish tones of the paint color (the color above the panelling)... and I love the end result.  I envisioned sand at the beach when I picked the color... and it turned out great!

And let me just give a big thank you to Caleb for straightening/organizing the shoes for me.  It's one of his "jobs" at our house... and for some reason it's one of his favorites :)

Last year I picked up these hooks and had Doug hang them up for me in the entryway.  Having a place to hang our coats (even though it's not all that big) has made a huge difference.  We only keep the jackets and footwear that we use on a daily basis by the door... everything else is stashed in a basement closet.


I don't know about you, but I can't wait for summer.  I am so ready to say goodbye to jackets and hello to flip flops!  And I think my entryway feels the same...