Entryway

Dee’s new house was dark, having been painted chocolate brown with dark trim throughout. She decided to start at the beginning— and transform the entryway first. From Dee: About a year ago, my fiancé and I bought our first house together! While I was excited at finally having my very own home, I completely underestimated the amount of work involved in getting it to look like my “dream” home. Luckily for us, the changes have all been cosmetic so far.

My apartment’s entryway is an angled, narrow pseudo-hall that opens to my main living space. After searching for a way to create some definition, I decided to do a little painting project, inspired by my coworking space. Here’s the inspiration: I love that I work from a place that makes bold design decisions, so when my WeWork location recently opened up this new common area, I filed away this simple geometric painting technique for future use.

Ewa and husband Andrew approached their new home’s balustrade in an interesting way. With only a tiny hall closet, they could benefit from some additional storage. See what they did with a trip to IKEA: From Ewa: My husband and I moved into this VA townhouse late summer. We knew we would be removing wall to wall carpeting before our furniture was to arrive in only 4 weeks. We had little time and not a huge budget. We decided to DIY the floors.

Having a whole closet right by your front door is amazing for storage if you’re a family with kids, but not if that closet comes with big outdated mirrored doors that don’t work well and don’t allow you to see what’s actually in the closet. Jen got to work, transforming this old closet into a very stylish — but most importantly functional — welcoming storage spot for her family. From Jen: This all started because this closet was not working for us.

Renovation by: Mike (you may remember his bathroom renovation) Location: Chicago We live in a typical Chicago apartment with a really long skinny layout. When you enter our apartment the foyer and hallway are the first things you see so they really needed some TLC. When we first moved in to the apartment the foyer and hallway were painted in a yellow glaze and the only light fixtures were flush mounted glass domes from the 80’s.

When Amanda moved into her second house, she knew the dark and dated split entry needed to be brightened up — a dark door, peach-hued walls and a tall wall with nothing on it just didn’t fit her style. From Amanda: To brighten up the space, we installed a tongue and groove accent wall (to cover the heavy knock down texture) and painted it white. A new larger glass French door let light pour.

You know how we’re always saying that entryways are a perfect spot for walls that wow? This before and after certainly highlights what a difference design in one’s entryway can make! It was a lot of work (and a lot of math) but you might find inspiration for your own entryway with this neat 3D wall pattern idea.

Katja’s entryway was pretty, but plain, and needed a good dose of something. Turns out that something was turquoise paint and a lot of graphic pattern. To create the accent wall, Katja first painted it a light turquoise. Then, strips of painter’s tape were placed vertically every 14 inches. Smaller bits were taped at an angle off those stripes, to create the arrow effect. She then painted over the whole thing with a darker turquoise and removed the tape.

Sometimes “before” pictures aren’t disgusting nightmares that leave you horrified. Sometimes they are perfectly nice, but the owner was just sick and tired of looking at the same layout or piece of furniture. We’ve all been there and so was Bethany, who’d grown weary of seeing this dark brown trellis pattern first thing after walking in the door. She made a few crucial tweaks without spending a dime — including a mini IKEA hack — and wound up refreshed.

A staircase in the entry was a selling point for Cassity, but the builder basic quality left much to be desired. She decided to make the steps worthy of their prime location. Check out the results:From Cassity: Having a staircase in our entry was one of the features I liked about our new house, but the builder grade finishes, worn carpet and cramped entry really bothered me.

Ever since my husband and I moved into our 1997 split level, we’ve been slowly working at removing the builder grade finishes to really make it reflect our taste. A couple of weeks ago I finally finished making over the entryway.I smashed the old green ceramic tiles, pulled the stained carpet off the stairs, and painted what felt like miles and miles of honey oak trim. The front door got a coat of yellow paint and the walls got a pale gray.