$50 Entryway Remodel

It's finished!!!! Hooray!!!! The neverending project is finally complete. Okay, not complete complete but pretty complete! ;-) I have one piece of baseboard left to attach and then it's done, really done. Our back entryway was by all accounts hideous. Not just a little hideous, but bad enough that I dreaded if anyone came to that door because they would see it's ugliness lurking right behind me. I waxed on about the unsightliness here, so we'll leave that in the past as the current is so beautiful I'm ready to take a chair down there and just sit in it's beautifulness all day.


The project began one lovely summer day, as my husband and oldest son had gone off to a triathlon in Des Moines. My youngest was napping and darn if I hadn't always wondered what lay beneath that awful faux wood paneling. So I took a little piece off to see, you know, for scientific purposes. Well wouldn't you know, that piece came off so dang easy I should just take another little piece off. By the end of naptime I had taken down almost all the paneling in the entry...and thrown it out the backdoor. aaaaahhhhh, that feels better.

Hmm.....but now with no paneling comes the realization that there was NOTHING behind the paneling, except a little insulation. No drywall, no nothing. Drywall can't be THAT hard to install, right?



Nope, it wasn't. If you can run a drill, use a ruler and have a little muscle (I have very little muscles and still managed it...give it a whirl). My dear husband helped me hold the drywall on the ceiling, but other than that this was a complete "Jen reno". Well....except for my dad putting up the beautiful light fixture....twice. This tiny room was such a hole that my very good friend asked, after the light was up "That's new, I love it!". No, actually it wasn't new, it just faded into the ugly ugliness that was my wood paneling.



So anyway, back to the drywall....measure, cut, screw, mud. Easy peasy. Why do people spend so much money having someone do this? Oh yeah, they might want it to be perfect...well mine is close, not quite, but heck I'm proud of it!


Drywall...check. Now on to the beaded board wainscotting. A few original pieces were left behind, hidden under the wood paneling. A little paint and they looked good as new....then came the tricky part...the rest of the bottom half needed some. Off to the Home Depot. Open package, nail it on, paint. The only problem here was old houses ARE NOT SQUARE. Not. At. All. Trimming out the beaded board took some creative carpentry...that's my expertise in case you were wondering. ;-) Paint and caulk solve everything. Paint and caulk should be invited to the World Peace Summit....like I said, they solve everything.






The moulding above the door was salvaged from a school in our district that is being torn down (so sad). I did that with my own two little hands, standing on the top of a ladder, yanking back and forth violently, scaring the beegeebers out of my ladder fearing friend at the bottom! Painted white you'd never know it was once canary yellow! Yikes! The other trim pieces came from my stash in the basement...or rather the stash that was LEFT in the basement when we bought the place. :-) It looked like a circus train before I painted...all different finishes, colors, etc. Painted bright white it all looks like it came in a pretty package with a bow on top. I painted the floor with porch floor paint that was left from this project. Yay for leftovers. First I had to pull up all the sticky back vinyl tiles...easy easy. I bought one gallon of paint (with lots left over) for the walls. And.....I guess I bought the rug, which was probably the most expensive part of my remodel!!

Oh, and I did this little project...the piece de resistance.

Ooh I am so proud of this free free cheap cheap project I could just squeal.

But I won't because my little guy is napping in the next room. ;-)

Watch out master closet....here I come.....hammer in hand.

Update: I've had some requests for specific info....here you go!

The paint color is Arctic Blue (Benjamin Moore, Satin finish)

The area rug is from Target. Yay Target!

I'm linking up to:

Metamorphosis Monday

Make Your Monday

DIY Day

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