When I moved my blog over to wordpress and a .com last August, all of my pictures became slightly blurry. Not to mention, my photography skills have improved a bit over the years. So, I thought I’d slowly work my way through a new room by room tour of our home with before and afters, sources and links to DIYs. This new little series “delightful home” has been on the proverbial list for six months and I’m finally ready to kick it off! It seems like the foyer is the logical place to start, seeing as it’s the first thing you’d see were you to pop by for a spell.
Because I don’t know anyone that doesn’t love a good before and after, feast your eyes on this. Yes, that is navy blue carpet with gold bows. Two things I positively adore that have gone dreadfully wrong in this instance.
Finding a table to fit this space was no easy feat. In fact, I looked for two years before throwing in the towel. I needed something really skinny, but tall and long (I mean, who DOESN’T need that?!).
I’ve always been a huge fan of the skirted round table, but with no place to put a skirted round table, I set my sights on a skirted four foot by one foot sized console. So, one year for Mother’s Day my boys lovingly built me this…
And a few yards of burlap later, it became this! I literally squealed with delight the minute I slipped the tiered, ruffled confection onto the perfectly preportioned table.
I think I have a mirror in every room of my house. Our home was built in 1964 and, while it has loads of windows, it only has 8′ ceilings. Mirrors brighten everything up, are easy and inexpensive to find, and make a room seem much larger than it is. This one is an antique that came out of Mother’s home. (She too has a penchant for mirrors and is always rotating through them, which totally works in my favor.)
Plates are another favorite accessory. The ones around the mirror are from my formal china – Butler’s Pantry by Lenox. This pattern was brand new when we were getting married and had some sort of issue that made it craze very early on. As a result, Lenox replaced every single piece of my 16 place settings (AND serving dishes) right around our first anniversary. I was left with loads to decorate my walls with!
I think three key things for a lovely and welcoming entry table are lighting, a family photo and a bunch of fresh flowers. It just doesn’t get more delightful, or easy, than that!
My pair of Aiden Gray lamps are from a shop near our old house. I wanted them for eons after Sister bought them for Bird’s nursery. I couldn’t believe my luck when the store was going out of business and I snagged them for a song. The glass risers are from Wisteria and are another favorite accessory piece.
Sister, Mother and I made oyster shell frames in what was an easy and cheap DIY project. You can find the details here. The little antique books are from Mother’s collection. Much like mirrors, she has more than she knows what to do with.
The vase is from Ikea and also comes in white. I have a few floating around the house! I fill mine up every week and a half or so knowing that I can ALWAYS find fabulous and inexpensive choices from Costco and Trader Joe’s. (Fresh Market works in a real pinch but costs more.)
Outside of paint, most of the reno work on this room revolved around the stairs. The banister was literally falling off when we we bought it! Since it had to be reattached anyway, I had the spindles replaced with a simple square wrought iron. And it makes a world of difference!
As for the stairs themselves, it was a happy day when we bid adieu to bow carpet. I couldn’t find a replacement that I loved and could afford, so we simply stripped everything down and had it painted. The stairs are not by any means perfect, and you still see lumps and bumps from the carpet glue. But we love them so much that seven years later I have no plans to put a runner down. We used an oil based black paint and then a clear coat. Honey touched them up about 18 months ago when they started to look a little scuffed. The numbers are vinyl stickers ordered from this etsy seller. They are 4″ tall and can be done in a variety of fonts. Total cost was $17.
The chandelier came from our previous home and actually lived in the pantry there! The shades are an EASY, cheap ($6 each) DIY knockoff of the Ballard Designs Dodie Drum Shades. You can see how I did it here.
After going a while without a rug in this space, I fell right in love with this graphic Dash and Albert beaut during a downtown Savannah shopping excursion to One Fish Two Fish. I knew it would be perfect for foyer and made it mine on the spot.
One thing that you can’t see in this picture is that we also replaced the solid wood door with custom door with four panes of glass. It really made all the difference in brightening things up – both inside and out!
If you’d like to see my Spring Foyer, look HERE!
I loved giving y’all a little peek into this space as it has transformed and then been tweaked over the years! The next room on the docket is the den. Stay tuned…
The Delightful Home {Dixie Delights Home Tour}
The Delightful Home {Spring Foyer}
Paint: Benjamin Moore Seaspray
DIXIE DELIGHTS DELIVERED
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