We built our house about 5 years ago, when the “Tuscan” color-trend was in. You know, the reds, oranges, dark browns, glazed walls and black furniture? We really loved it (at the time), but we grew out of that look quickly and wanted something brighter and more welcoming.

One of the places we started was the outside of our home. We don’t have a huge porch by any means, but we knew how important it was to have a clean, manicured entryway for our visitors, so we did the best with what we had!

We added window planters, landscaped our front flowerbed with simple plants, black bark and cleaned up our outdoor lighting fixtures and shutters.

Our porch is pretty small, but we still utilized every inch of space we had, by adding an outdoor rug from Walmart, for only about $15.00, a simple white bench from Ikea for $30, colorful pillows and a wood curl wreath on our front door from Target.

After the outside of our house was presentable, we moved inside to give our entryway a much needed face lift. As I mentioned before, our house started out a bit dark, so the first thing we did was lighten up the paint with Autumn Haze from Glidden, in a Satin finish. We then added a new lighting fixture we got for free that we spray painted white, a $20 rug from Ikea, a small thrifted entryway table, and a big chunky mirror that would reflect light, to make the space appear larger!

Along with all of these changes, we also decided that having the backside of our front door painted black would be really cool! We love how it anchors the space now and gives the area a focal point.

Just last Summer we also realized how much of our entryway was being underutilized. We had a standard coat closet on one side, and rarely even used it. So instead of letting all of that space go to waste, we removed the door, cut out a bit more of the wall, designed a custom mudroom type nook, and opened up our space even more!

Read in detail about how we created this space: Phase 1. Phase 2. Phase 3

Now our entryway is a lot more functional and has tons of personality and charm that reflects our family’s style a lot better than before.

If you’re looking for more ideas on how to make your homes entryway a lot more appealing, you can get some great tips and tricks from these past articles here and here.

We’re in LOVE with our homes outside and inside entryway now. Even though it’s taken us almost two years to get it right… we’ve finally accomplished the task of utilizing every square inch and taking this once boring, dark space to it’s fullest, brightest, most functional potential!