A few months ago, my husband, Michael, and I moved from Illinois to Texas. After moving around about 7 times in the past 5 years we decided to find a place that we wouldn’t mind staying a while in. We got lucky and found the perfect little 1200 square foot house that is just enough space for us. It’s not huge, but a huge upgrade from the 600 square foot apartment we were living in back in Illinois. Our old apartment was crammed and not very functional for us anymore, but it was also jam packed with old architectural charm that we loved. Our new construction home in Texas is 100x better than our old apartment, but it feels a bit sterile and impersonal. It’s a lot of clean lines and bright white and I miss our exposed brick, funky mismatched door knobs and old woodwork. But most of all, I miss having the clearly defined rooms. In under 600 square feet we had a living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom AND a sunroom. Yes, all of the rooms were tiny…especially the kitchen.
But here we are, in a beautiful brand new house that is twice the size and mostly just one big room. I love mostly everything about it, except the whole big white box thing has been somewhat of a design challenge for me.
This is what the place looked like before all of our things arrived. A lot of little changes have been made since then, but it’s still mostly all white and impersonal.
After some time of living in our blank canvas home and brainstorming ways of injecting some charm, I finally have a plan of how to add some personality and bring in some color starting with the entryway. The entryway has bothered me since we first moved in. And my big issue with the entryway is that we don’t have one. The door opens right into our main living area, which is also the dining area and kitchen. I’ve never lived in an open concept home before, and it’s a big design challenge for me to create distinct spaces that flow into each other.
After scouring Pinterest and Instagram, the idea I seem to have latched onto is a board and batten accent wall kind of thing. The style fits well into our modern craftsman house but also brings in a more traditional vibe that will hopefully warm up our otherwise cold finishes.
Here is a little roundup of my favorite inspiration images for my entryway project:
I always need to draw out my ideas before Michael signs off on them because my verbal descriptions are never precise enough for him. I get it…he’s a planner and wants to know exactly what is in store for him.
Here is my photoshopped (lol) image that got Michael on board for this project. Hopefully we get to it in the next couple of days!
