...this is going to be the most drawn out house tour in history. And today's part of the tour is pretty boring, covering entrances, exits, stairwells, and laundry (which, lets face it, is probably the most lived-in room).
Our front door is YELLOW. I'm not sure this picture does it justice. We knew we wanted a bright front door, I wanted aqua and Ken wanted yellow. He wasn't getting much when it was coming to this house building business, so I gave him the front door. This is probably a better depiction of the actual color:
I think the color was called daffodil. And that's just what it is. And I love it.
We have a two story foyer, which I don't usually like, but changing that would have meant losing a ton of natural light on both floors of our house. And now that we have it, I love how it keeps the house feeling open, even upstairs. I can yell down to Ken to bring something up for bedtime and he can't use the excuse of saying he didn't hear me.
(The light fixture is a lot cleaner now. It's a knock-off of this one at Pottery Barn and was half the price at overstock.com, but now I can't find it. We also have the same one in the stairwell. I just noticed that the front door is open in this picture. Hope someone closed it).
This is the foyer...I think I've shared this before. I didn't really know what I'd do here and it's ended up being one of my favorite spots in the whole house.
Frames are from anthropologie and paper source. Nest is from here via Carron. Mirror is from terrain via my momma.
Coming in the front door, right in front of you is the great room. If you turn to the right, you head toward the kitchen. Turn to the left and you head toward the mudroom/my office/bathroom/stairs.
This is that wall:
The plates were gifts from Ken's grandparents that have the kid's names, times of birth, etc. on them. They are amazing. Mirror is from here. Clock was a present from Ken (yeah, he checks pinterest, good man that he is) from here.
When we were building our house, I sent our cabinet guy this picture and said I wanted this for our mudroom, but in white (and I wanted baskets where there were shelves for shoes):
And we came pretty close (bad picture. I really need a magazine photographer to come out. Know any that are free?):
It is always that clean.
Two things I love about the mudroom. First is the floor. It doesn't show anything. I'm not sure if I've ever washed it:
The second is my little pinboard/key holder thingamajig:
Postcards, invitations, birth announcements. Love.
When you walk out the mudroom, the stairs are right there. I think these are called switchback stairs? Don't quote me on that. We decided not to do a runner and instead painted the risers. Our kids are both really good on stairs, wear gripper socks, and as one friend pointed out, since they are switchback, they won't fall as far. Oye.
The basket is for laundry that accumulates during the day. My kids accumulate a lot of laundry.
As soon as you get to the top of the stairs, right in front of you is a pocket door to the laundry room.
And look, here's a shot of actual, live laundering happening! The counter is from IKEA and some day I hope to stain it a little darker. Probably after the kids go to college. The bar to hold clothes was a nice idea but really nothing ever goes up there and someday I'll extend the cabinets over that way too.
I LOVE having our laundry upstairs. After having it in the basement of our last house, I definitely appreciate not having to climb two flights of stairs with eight days worth of laundry.
...and I'm not kidding you, due to a crazy schedule, it has taken me the better part of a week to get this post ready. Now I need to go get some laundry done.
