Grey Really Does Matter

With the Chandelier looking new it was time to get this front entrance way into shape.  The first thing people see when coming over.

When pulling off a full house facelift, knowing your budget is the most important thing.

Once the budget is figured out the facelift can be planned out.

• Will this be a working with "the bones" of the house operation? 
• OR maybe a little extra pulls and tucks here and there?  
• OR is this a complete and total make over.

Unfortunately for us, this facelift is a on a tight budget a.k.a working with "the bones."

The first thing we HAD to give up on our wish list was new flooring.

Our house has (ugly) tile from entry way, to kitchen through the hallway, half bath and laundry room.  We do have beautiful hardwood in our family room, dinning room and a boarder of hardwood surrounding carpet in our front living room.  The stairs going up are carpeted with carpeting through out the entire upstairs with exception of bathrooms which are tiled.

Plan (with budget in mind)...Keep Tile and save money.  Let me just say, I hate this tile!
I did not want the tile to stick out, I wanted it to blend and work with the tile. Colour choice was extremely important for this. I literally took my colour wheel and sat in the middle of the entry way pulling colours and pairing it with the tile.

I wanted something soft and calming, however that made a big impacted. I was planning a focal wall that will be seen from the front door so I did not want to compete against or clash with that.

But most importantly I wanted something clean, fresh and new.

WE WENT WITH Grey Matters Sherwin-Williams  

But before we started painting, a plan for the gritty/dingy/smoker yellow wallpaper wrapped around the lower half of the front entry walls encased in gold trim was needed.

First thought...take it all down.  It was just so so hard to look at.  

 However once some of the trim (that was glued onto the wall paper) was taken down the wallpaper wasn't looking so bad. 

Before the paint but with extra trim removed

I did think about the possibility of installing all new wainscoting, more modern, a lot nicer but then...of course the budget came into play.  

And I thought to myself...maybe I can just paint the wallpaper, save some dough and time?  

Painted

Painted

 And it turned out GREAT!! I LOVED THE LOOK!!

Now time to add a little Grey Matters

Done! Well, kinda...

 Walls painted, Chandler rope in need of a little more black spray paint, and that door...it still needed an action plan.  But the wall colour, the white painted wallpaper and trim...I loved the way it turned out!

 

The Dresser...Before and After

Kailyn was in need of some major dresser help. 

Her dresser from years ago that we purchased at Ikea was falling apart.

I mean, it was embarrassingly falling apart!

It only had 3 drawers in the first place.  

Not nearly the space that she needed.

1 of the 3 drawers were no longer able to even fit into the fame, it was so broken.

Kailyn kept that drawer on her floor with clothes flowing out everywhere.

It was a mess!!

 I knew I needed something with a lot of deep drawers,

I wanted to give her as much space as possible so she had NO excuse not to put her clothes away.

I went looking for a new dresser on kijiji and I found this (as seen below)

(I bought it as a set and I'm going to be using the long piece for the girls room) 

The before

brass handles had to go

I think the previous owners tried to give it an antiqued/it's been through a fire look??

I wanted something modern but that still had character and this dresser was perfect.  

The dresser has great details from the shape of the handles and the little key hole accent piece on the 3rd drawer, super cute, to the square detailing around the top and middle of the piece...some real nice details.  

First I took off all the handles and key accent piece.

I washed and sanded the dresser down, trying to get rid of any marks and old paint residue from the previous owners.  I started to paint it and about 3 coats in to it I was happy with the finish product.

We spray painted the handles and the key accent piece a glossy black and then sprayed on a clear coat hoping to protect them from any chipping.

I was torn between a silver or black finish.  I'm happy with the black.

and that was that, I was done and I was so happy with the look.

This blog post is part of Purple and Concrete a Bedroom Transformation. Click the link to read