Entryway Alcove {our georgia home}

Last September (has it seriously been that long?) I shared some “before” photos of our house, and now that projects are actually finished around here, I figured I’d start letting you see the “afters.”

So to kick this off, it’s only natural that I show you our new entryway. It’s not a traditional entryway, though, because it’s not from our front door. It’s from our garage, which is where we—99 times out of 100—enter every day.

Before, it was a cramped pantry:

The idea to make this an entryway came pretty naturally. I hated the way our kitchen table was constantly cluttered with stuff; I really wanted some other place to put everything. After living without a pantry, we decided to move the pantry next door into the laundry room (a different post for another day), so we were left with an empty nook. What to do? What to do? AHA! Entryway alcove!

Here’s what our entryway looks like now:

To say that I’m still excited about this, seven months later, is an understatement. I LOVE it! We took the doors off to open it up a lot more, took out the stupid wire shelves, gave it a fresh coat of yellow paint, and hung up our old message center. I’ve always fancied the “family rules” idea, so when we saw it on sale over the holidays at Kohl’s, we snatched it and hung it up. Sure, I could’ve ordered one all rustic-looking and personalized from Etsy, but this is real life, folks; I bought a mass-manufactured one at a store, and I think it looks great!

One of my favorite things about the alcove is the table. Finding one that fit the alcove’s dimensions was the hardest part, but one of our favorite stores came to the rescue. It’s actually the Rekarne sofa table from Ikea and we gave it a new life by slapping a couple coats of paint (Valspar Aqua Glow) and stain on it. Then we roughed it up a bit to make it look a little rugged.

The little baskets sitting on top of the table are from France (but I’ve actually seen similar ones in stores), and the center tray where we put our spare change in is from Nove, Italy. I love having a place to put our incoming mail and magazines, as well as having a little spot for our outgoing mail. It’s actually keeping me more accountable. I try to have fresh flowers as often as possible, because fresh flowers make me happy. (Fun fact: did you know Kroger has flowers for super cheap if you can catch them the day after they get a flower shipment in? I never pay more than $5 for a bouquet, and sometimes pay as low as $.50—true story.)  

The baskets on the bottom are from Walmart (I’m really digging their Better Homes and Gardens collection) and we store our reusable bags in the middle bin, and hats and umbrellas, our dog’s leash, envelopes, stamps, and other knick-knacks in the other two.

Since the little alcove doesn’t get any natural light, we added some string of lights to brighten things up when the main light fixture isn’t on. Surprisingly enough, the flowers last at least two weeks, despite not getting any direct sunshine.

I honestly didn’t think we’d keep it looking this nice and neat all the time, but the best part about it is that we actually do. It’s also really, really nice to see it every day when we walk through our door.

Oh! And here’s a before and after, because those are always fun to see:

Woohoo! Hopefully I can show you our revamped closet or pantry/laundry room next! So what do you think?