We purchased our town home just over two years ago. The town home is only about 6 years old (an old house in Las Vegas is about 25-30 years old!) so aside from some shoddy construction and corner cutting made by the builder, our home is in pretty good shape. But it’s kind of blah. It came with white walls, white linoleum and cheap light beige carpet. We live in the desert and there is more dust and dirt here than I ever experienced living out East. Light beige carpets and white walls get very dirty, very fast. We need to have our carpets cleaned at least four times a year, which is a real drag.
We finally gave up cleaning the carpet in the entryway from the garage. The dirt was back in the carpet within minutes. The dirt from little kid hands refused to wash off the flat white contractor paint no matter how hard I scrubbed. It was dirty, dingy and disgusting. I hated having people go over there to use the restroom when they were visiting!
So this summer we decided to use what we had on hand freshen up the entryway to make it reasonably clean and inviting.
The first step was painting the walls a dark brown. We have this color on two other walls in our living room and the paint was leftover from that. I love, love, love this color! I thought the dark brown would be too dark in there, but it really made the space feel bigger.
Before -- white flat walls
After -- painted walls, but still nasty carpet
More Before
Same wall as above, after
Before -- see that dirt? Ugh!
Ahh, AFTER! Good-bye grimy dirt.
After (yup, I cleaned out the basket!)
Then the nasty carpet had to go. We figured even if we ripped up the carpet and just painted the cement floor, it would still look better than that carpet! But then we came up with the idea of self-adhesive linoleum tiles, which just happened to be on clearance. In fact, the flooring was so cheap that we decided to go ahead and cover the ugly white linoleum in the bathroom, too.
Before (this is beyond embarassing!)
Before (YUK!)
After
After
I printed out this artwork and put it in a dollar store frame.
And I picked up a clean welcome mat at Wal-Mart because I read a tip to have a mat on both the inside and outside of every door to cut the dirt being tracked in.
This welcome sign I already had.
And voila! Our brand new entryway. I absolutely love and adore it. I think it’s my new favorite “room” in our home!
Relatively Clean and Welcoming!
Want to see some more reasonably clean and welcoming entryways? Click on over to Like Mother, Like Daughter for some inspiration!
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Twitter: Jacquisblogs
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Thats a BIG difference… the update looks great. Good job
Jacqui Layne recently posted..MrsFAT to MrsFIT Week 3
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Thanks! It turned out great!
What a marvelous redo! I would never have thought to paint a small entry a dark color but it really pops with those white doors! The new flooring really pulls it all together. Great job!
Oh my word, that is an amazing transformation! Usually I like white and bright, but I have to say that your chocolate brown is fabulous.
Emily recently posted..a Reasonably Clean welcome!
I LOVE that chocolate brown! It looks like a whole other room now that you redcorated it. Just beautiful.
justamouse recently posted..Entering Sacred Space
Thank you! I have a wall hanging that says “I Dream In Chocolate”. Maybe I should put it up in there!
The brown paint looks great! And the floors will be so much easier to keep clean
We just moved from a home with no carpet, to one that has mostly light beige, it’s been just a few weeks and I am already sick of vacuuming, especially the stairs which look grimy immediately after cleaning.
Don’t you love how a newly finished room becomes your favorite
Alanna Rose recently posted..a reasonably clean entry…getting settled, day 5
I hate to admit, but I’m terrible at mopping floors. I much prefer my vacuum. I have new cleaning routine, though, so hopefully that will help!
Wow! That is a huge improvement! I love the color of the paint, it looks very warm. Good for you!
Mrs. Fordyce recently posted..entryway chaos!
Thank you!
Wow! What a transformation! It looks wonderful. And I’ll admit I’m a little jealous – I wish we could paint to get rid of the grime on the “landlord beige” walls of our apartment
Kate recently posted..I Can Probably Do This
Thank you! Up until we bought this place, we rented for years and years, too. I did see a blog post yesterday where a lady painted an old front door a cheery color and hung it behind her couch in her living room! She was renting and wanted some color, but didn’t want to paint the walls.
Wow, that is quite the transformation! It’s such a good feeling to finally something (like that carpet) that you’ve been just putting up with for so long. Incredibly satisfying, and it looks great, too!
Rosie recently posted..A Reasonably Clean Welcome ~ Show yours!
Thanks, Rosie! We had been wanting to tear it up, but kept thinking it would be too expensive to replace with tile or laminate flooring. I’m glad we came up with an alternative that fit in our budget.
Gosh, that’s a gorgeous brown! It really does make the space seem bigger, doesn’t it?
S/V Mari Hal-O-Jen recently posted..Chillin’
Thank you! I was really worried it would make the space seem smaller, but not so! I guess you can do dark colors in dark areas.
Camille, you did a great job! It looks wonderful!
I do recommend large LARGE “waterhog” mats at entryways — yes, I know that water isn’t your issue, but they are great because dirt hugs them and not your shoes or floors! Then you can vacuum them or hose them off. I have two mats at my door — one small like yours and then one large one!
Leila recently posted..A Reasonably Clean Welcome ~ Show yours!
Thank you, Leila! I am going to look in to those mats. Anything to cut down on the dirt that gets tracked in! Thanks for the suggestion.
Is the paint Benjamin Moore Middlebury Brown? It looks just like the color in our upstairs hallway (and looks great in your entryway)!
Nope, it’s Lowes brand paint. I can’t remember what it’s called, which I’m sure I’ll regret. Hopefully we kept the can! I was really hesitant to use it (it’s on 2 walls in our living room), but I love it! I’m thinking of painting the one white wall left in the living that color.
Wow, that looks REALLY awesome!
Cathy recently posted..Evening Roundup: $0.50 notebooks at Target
Thanks, Cathy! I really love it. I was concerned about dark paint in there, but it works.