room by room: foyer

Two weeks ago I showed you the floorplan for the main level of our home.  Next up, I want to show you each room, and what our "task" list is for each of those rooms, since at this point selling isn't a "maybe", but a "when".  These things need to happen.  How quickly they happen, however, is another story (ahem...). 

This is a view of the foyer from the living room.  A few things....I've mentioned the paint before in our floorplan post, but the entire house (yes, every single room) was painted this same color.  It is a nice, neutral color, but it's actualy quite dark.  Another downside?  It's flat.  I like she soft sheen a nice eggshell provides, as well as the much easier cleanup.  A big part of the reason that we need to paint so many walls is for that reason!  They are flat, we have two small kids, and the walls are just dirty!  I've wiped and scrubbed them, but to no avail.  And we can NOT match this darn paint color/sheen.  I've tried.  Three times.  They can match the color, but then not the sheen. Or they can match the sheen, but then not the color.  Sigh.....  So repainting most of the house is in order.  Notice anything else about this foyer, or anything you don't notice?  Storage.  That's right!  No coat closet.  Another thing to remedy. 

When I took these shots I decided I wasn't going to sugar-coat it.  Show our house, as it is now, and what it means to have a house with two small children, two dogs and a cat, that is very lived-in, and needs some sprucing up before sale.  Well, here it is, in all it's glory.  This is what the foyer looks like lately.  We have a picture that is missing from the collage, the buffet is covered with run-over from my studio, and again, we have no storage.  Not that we ever enter through the front door anyhow (almost always from the garage), but when people come over, especially now that the weather is turning cooler, we'd like to have a place for people to hang their hat (or more appropriately, coat!). 

And then there's the paint.  Do I need to say more?  This is what a few years of settling, little hands, a curious child with a screwdriver, and some spackle to fix said spots will get you. 

So, what is our plan?  Well, we haven't settled on a color for this area just yet.  I may do a bit more digging into where the painting subcontractor purchased the paint so that we could just do touch-up (because it's not from the place the builder told us).  So, here's the plan to ready the foyer:

1. Touch up paint/repaint if need be
2. Take down family photo collage to depersonalize the space and make room for a coat hanger
3. Get some salvaged wood and make/paint coat hanger (talked about here)
4. Move buffet into studio (which we'll likely stage as a dining room....more about that later)
5. Repaint bench we already own and is in our garage
6. Create cushion to add to the top of the bench

Here's the bench.  Look familiar?  We modeled it after the Pottery Barn version and my hubby and a friend built it out of mdf and then we painted it.  This was it sitting in our front entry of our last Arizona house (which also had no coat closet). 

Cute, no?  I'm excited to get started!