The Foyer - Before & After

We finally finished our foyer. It took over three years but it's done! It's just a tiny little space but it's been a major design conundrum for us since day one. The lighting is weird and the walls needed a lot of work.

Here we are in the foyer when we came to the house on our real estate viewing:

Blurry. That's because it was in the olden days.

Here it is on the day that we closed on the house:

Yep, the flooring was two different colors. Don't even get me started!

Here you'll see the Mister running from the camera.  This is back when he had energy - as most of us do pre-restoration.
The wall sconce made me sad.  That's the original doorbell but I just don't know why they hung it over the heating vent. Cray-cray.    Wanna see more of that ceiling light fixture?

Le sigh. I wanted to love that light. I really and truly did.

But even in the daytime, it made our foyer look like a spook house. 

Or a whore house. You pick. 

The walls in the foyer were painted over wallpaper. And not just any wallpaper but fuzzy, flocked wallpaper. It made for an interesting scene. We painted over it but the texture of it drove me absolutely mad. One day, I got the wild idea that I should try and peel it all off. 

Um, as you'll see. Boy was the Mister surprised when he came home!

Even Pip got in on the action.

As you can see, the wallpaper was once pink and green flowers. We also learned during the restoration that all of the trim in our house used to be dark green like the leaves on the flowers. Fancy! (and I'm glad that we weren't the ones that had to cover it with primer)

The walls stayed peeled as you see below - and what we liked to call "historic" for about two years!

I know. I know. I'm mortified now that it took us so long but as you may know, sometimes house repairs don't go as planned. This is what people saw when they came into our front door. Super classy! 

This Spring, we decided to bite the bullet and finally finish it all. We had a drywall guy come in and sand and re-plaster both the foyer and the hall. What a freakin' mess! I swear that Hell must be covered in drywall dust. After much clean-up and weeks and weeks of trying to pick colors (I'll spare you the details and the photos of dozens of paint swatches), we decided on one. We were almost done with the whole thing when I exclaimed to the Mister over dinner, "One more wall to paint and we'll finally be finished with the entire house!" We were as pleased as punch. 

And the Gods laughed. Within a couple of days,  the house flooded and the many months of the kitchen repair ordeal started. I'm pretty sure that I jinxed us. So today, I realized that I have never stopped to appreciate the "after" of it all. You know how that goes sometimes? We just zoom on to the next thing that needs to be done? So here it is. The after!

I know. It's hard to tell anything from photos of a foyer that is too small to photograph. But I thought that I should give it it's due. We found that massive landscape in the darkest corner of an estate sale house basement and purchased it before we even measured it. It had me at "knotty pine frame". We figured that "Sure! It will fit in the car!" but ha! it didn't. We ended up having to tie it to the roof and drive home at a turtle's pace. It's hard to tell here but that thing is about as big as my car. Thank God it even fit on the wall. The furniture piece is a Paul McCobb and the Mister inherited it from his late uncle. We got the 50's ceiling light for a quarter at a junk shop in my hometown. That horse clock was a birthday gift from my Mom. I've always wanted one!

We replaced the hall lights that made me sad with a pair of vintage lights that we found on eBay. I tried to take photos of them for you....but to me, taking photos of lights while they're lit is like trying to get blood from a turnip. And I'm a quitter. There! I said it.

We painted the hall yellow to separate the spaces. There was a lot of debate on the whole "one color? two colors?" issue but in the end, we went for it. We still have the old doorbell but are planning to do some work to it to make it fit in better. Mr. Kitten Pants likes to reach up and swat the chimes, sending the rest of the nervous Nellies hiding for cover under the bed. 

The attached hall was all white before and peeling. At last, it's a nice place to hang my collection of anonymous portraits. I won't go into the details now but I think that this hall is haunted. I once heard a medium say that when we bring home things belonging to other people, they carry residual energy - so we need to be careful. I'm pretty sure that one of these portraits has some serious residual energy!

It would also be a safe bet to say that this looooong hall gets some epic kitty cat raceway action! 

I was getting ready to say something about how we are NOW finished with the restoration but I know that it would be a fool's bet to even go there! Let's just say that home ownership is always a work in progress. An evolution, if you will.

Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha