New Entry Door

Confession time - I'm a freak about lighting. An honest to God highly opinionated, overly critical freak about it. On one hand I love lighting and believe in the power of a great light fixture in a space, but most of the time I don't actually want to see that light turned on. Especially for a photo. I hate when the only light source in a room is from a fixture. The shadows, the light bombs, the coloring, oyyyy it makes my blood boil and my eyes hurt all at the same time. Now, I'm aware that task lighting is necessary, but to me, the happiest spaces are those that are primarily lit with natural light.

Well, guess what - the hub of our current project - the hallways right off the garage was a great example of a bad lighting situation. I've known it since the day we moved in. It has cans, it has a pretty little pendant, but it has only second hand natural light (powder room window and laundry room window) which makes it dark and shadowy. Annoyingly, it's not just the hallway, the breakfast room and stair landing are in the same boat. The latter two sit in the center of the house, and the garage is on the other side of the hallway so there has never been much hope for integrating a window BUT a few weeks ago a sliver of hope occurred to me.

Enter the existing door. 

This is the entry door from the open air garage which means just on the other side of this solid beast is sunlight. Glorious, glorious sunlight. This door needed glass. It would change everything, I just knew it. 

As I mentioned the idea to Brent I honestly had no idea how involved this change would be. Turns out, the whole thing was relatively simple.  The first step was to pick out the door so we perused the Internet to find that Home Depot actually had a pretty wide selection and their prices were pretty good at just over $200. As much as I was desperate for the natural light, I knew we didn't want a full lite door. Not the right look, plus we didn't like the idea of being that exposed from a privacy standpoint. We ended up selecting this 9-lite door and within the hour, the old door was off and the new door was on. 

Boom:

Just look at that light.

As excited as we were with the instant happy this little change had already made, this door switch-a-roo was not without some hiccups. The first, the door hardware. Brent measured the hinge location of the old door as compared to the new door before mounting and while that was all good, the latches in the door way were way off. Nothing is ever simple, sigh. Brent used his drimel to cut out new latch locations to match the new door and we used wood filler to cover the old holes, creating a seamless look. Next, it was time to paint the door. Initially we thought about painting the door white to match the shiplap walls (all just primed as of now) but then we decided NAY, let's do something fun. So, we settled on this dusty blue/gray color called Flint Smoke from Behr.

It took a few coats but I could tell we had a winner after just a few strokes. 

It's like the door was meant to be this color. So happy and so warm at the same time. And the natural light from the glass is a game changer y'all, not just for this mudroom area but for the breakfast room and stair landing as well.

We are so happy with the results, but I will say the one negative to the pretty new door is the fact that it just magnifies the ugly creamy trim color. We are still weighing options as to how to attack this. Do we paint the entire downstairs with a fresh clean white? Or do we go back with the creamier color to keep costs down and keep things consistent throughout the house. Perhaps with the new natural light flooding in the old paint color won't seem so yellow. What do you think?

All photos are my own. 

SHIPLAP

Last week I shared how inheriting a 100+ year old bench kick-started our mudroom and today I'm excited to show you some progress! So, as a reminder - this is the space we were working with:

The door you see with the letter magnets is the entry door from the garage. The hallway, directly to the left as you come into the house leads you down to the Powder Room straight ahead, which is where all of the light is coming from in this photo, and the laundry room and hall closet on the right side. It's a decent sized space with a lot of doors and very little natural light basically screaming....MAKE ME A MUDROOM!

To get the ball rolling on this project we could think of only one element that would really start to set the tone for this space....SHIPLAP! We wanted to add some interest to the walls and nothing says interest + mudroom like shiplap so we jumped right in.

To begin we headed to our local Home Depot to peruse the wood options. We found they actually sell 6" high shiplap and while that was tempting we really wanted the individual planks to be taller. So we decided to make our own shiplap using 8" high primed 3/4" thick x 16' long pieces of wood.

To start we talked through how we wanted the ship lap to integrate with the existing crown moulding and baseboard. Brent cut a small piece so we could hold it up against the mouldings and we quickly decided to do away with the crown and just let the planks go all the way to the ceiling. This was necessary because the 3/4" piece of wood was deeper than the bottom of the crown which would of created a weird intersect. As for the baseboards - we decided to keep those in tact. For several reasons, but mainly because the depth of the plank against the baseboard wasn't an issue and we knew  removing the baseboards would open a whole can of worms in terms of what do you do with the shoe mould that sits between the hardwood floors and the baseboards themselves? We didn't have an answer to that question, so we left well enough alone.

We started on the long wall, directly to the left when you enter through the garage. This was the longest wall so we knew there would be the least amount of cuts to do here. We started at the top of the wall because our ceilings are little over 8 feet high so we knew we would have one plank that was a bit shorter than the rest and we wanted that plank to be at the bottom.

For those unfamiliar with shiplap there is no set rule for spacing. You can make the gaps between the planks as big or as small as you want. We played with a few options and decided to leave a nickel space between our planks for a more classic look.

The process went something like this: We would measure the wall, Brent would cut the wood (when necessary) and bring it inside. Then,  I would dab wood glue on the back and we would lift the plank into place and use nickels to achieve the gaps we were going for before Brent used his nail gun to secure the wood in place. We moved pretty fast and with every board that went up we got more and more excited as the space really started to come to life! We loved the look so much we decided to continue the ship lap on the perpendicular wall that leads to the stairs. It just felt right....

Obviously those mitered + angled cuts were not fun, but Brent and his big math loving brain figured it out and we are SO happy with the results. It sounds crazy but this shiplap has completely transformed this space. This hallway used to just kind of be there and now it literally demands attention. It feels interesting and alive and the cool part is THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING! We haven't even painted it yet! There are so many more layers to add, but for now let's all revel in the fact that stacked pieces of wood can take a space from zero to hero.

All photos are my own. 

The Bench

My Grandmother & PapaJack's Country House garage strikes again! 

Last year around this time we picked up the 100+ year old mantle that belonged to my PapaJack's Mom. As you know, we have since made over that mantle (read all about it here, here, here and here). Earlier this summer we picked up another oldie, but goodie - a 100+ year old bench/pew from a church in Nashville, Tennessee.

We had spotted the bench last summer but it took us a whole year to get our lives together enough to actually pick it up and take it home.

We had a few ideas as to how we could incorporate this bench into our space. One thought was to use the bench in the dining room. We both love the look of a bench on one side of the table and chairs on the other. But, by the time we got the bench home we had already figured out our chair situation in that room so we crossed that idea off the list. The other option had been to put the bench in the hallway, off the garage, to serve as landing spot for Croix's Diaper bag, our work bags, my purse, etc.  You know...kind of like a mud-room.

We had always planned to build-out some type of mudroom here and this bench felt like a good place to start.  While I had always envisioned our mudroom being made out of cabinetry, I think building out a space around a cool piece like this bench could be a lot more interesting. We spent our long car ride down to the beach a few weeks ago scheming and dreaming about a lot of house plans, this mudroom space included. After sifting through a ton of inspiration images and sketches I think we have a pretty solid plan and we are pumped to jump in.

I have a feeling this one is going to move pretty fast, because once you have an idea that can add organization AND pretty to your life you just have to get it done ASAP! 

Unless otherwise noted all photos are my own. 

10 Years Together

Brent and I started dating ten years ago today. TEN YEARS y'all. 

Nashville, TN - Vanderbilt vs UGA game 2007

We met at The University of Georgia the fall of our Junior year (2006) and went on one date but didn't start dating exclusively/officially until the end of summer 2007. That year will forever be known in the "story of us" as the year of the chase. 

Chattanooga, TN - 2007

I wasn't in the best place when we met and was definitely not looking for a serious relationship. Brent was persistent and patient and though I fought off dating that year, I did love being around him and our friendship grew and grew. Finally, something clicked and all at once I saw that everything I was looking for in a boyfriend was right in front of me. Things got more serious between us that summer as our conversations got longer and we got closer and closer. As our Senior year started we went to a Kenny Chesney concert with a group of friends and had our first kiss. From that day on....we were a couple.  

Ten years has absolutely flown by. Together we have had a lot of good times, experienced some low points and done a whole lot of growing up. We've been married over 4 years,  had 1 child (hi Croix), 1 dog, 2 houses, 4 jobs and 3 degrees. We have been to 13 countries, 3 continents and we've done 1 zillion DIY projects. We have been busy and we have had fun. 

Rome, Italy - Honeymoon 2013

Florence, Italy - Honeymoon 2013

We are true partners and the longer I live the more I realize just how lucky we are. Life can be hard and I really don't know what I would do without our relationship. If he's not pulling my car out of the mud (last week) he's cooking me dinner or driving all over town helping me furnish the new showroom. Brent is my counselor, my chef, my advisor, my comfort zone, my comedic relief, the best dad to our Croix and my best friend. Doing life with him is truly one of the biggest pleasures of my life.

South Port, Florida - Wedding Day May 4, 2013
Photo Credit: Tisha Saunders

Oooooh and fun fact:

September 7th 2012 is the anniversary of our engagement. Brent proposed on our 5 year dating anniversary in Highlands, North Carolina. 

Highlands, NC 2012
Photo Credit: Lori Foster

Happy 10 years to us! 

All photos are my own.