Foyer Facelift

{I have been completely absent from blogging the past couple of weeks. We have just had so much going on. I'm hoping to jump back into things more regularly this week}

We have lived in our house for about 2 1/2 years now and began building this house nearly 3 years ago now. And when I mention to people that I have a laundry list of home improvement projects I would like to get done (not all at once), I often get some interesting reactions. Even my own husband rolls his eyes at me often enough.

So let me just disclaimer any home improvement desires with this: I love our house. It is a great house and we are so blessed to have it. I love our house just as it is. Here comes the but...BUT, we did not custom build our house. In other words, a homebuilder had purchased a slew of lots on our street. We picked a floorplan offered by the builder and they built this house on one of the lots they had already acquired. Yes, we did get to choose a lot of options (cabinet color, countertops, flooring, etc.). However, unlike a custom homebuilder we did not have the option to customize everything in the house. For instance, we chose a lighting package, but the builder chose the specific light fixtures. We didn't have to decide on the type of window to put in the house or what type of garage door to install. I think you get the idea.

If you drive around our neighborhood, you are going to see a few handfuls of houses that look very similar to ours. My husband calls these "McHouses". So one of the things that has always appealed to me is adding some character back into our home that makes it unique and takes the edge off of a builder basic home. And I am no DIY guru, so this will hopefully be done in small ways over the years.

With all that being said, I finally got around to my first little project: giving our foyer a little facelift. The first floor of our house is a pretty open concept. When you walk in our front door you can see clear through to the back yard. I have been wanting to give our small foyer a little bit of visual interest and also some function, so I decided to add a very basic board and batten treatment on the one wall we have in our foyer.

Before

So that's what it looked like beforehand. Our front door is on the left. On the right is a small coat closet (you can see the door handle sticking out). That closet is completely filled with Adam's and my coats. So when we have guests over and it is cold out, I never have anywhere to hang coats. Typically they end up stacked on the table in our dining room, or worse, on the floor.

I looked at several tutorials that I got off of Pinterest, decided to make the design very basic. Then we found a free weekend and a friend came over and brought his miter saw and nail gun with him. Fun times!

In Progress

I pretty much did all of the work myself with some expert supervision from our friend. My craftsmanship is definitely not perfect. In fact, I still have some areas that I need to touch up, but in the end I am pretty pleased with the result.

I debated leaving the wall painted the same color as the rest of the foyer, but in the end decided to paint everything in the same semi-gloss trim paint in order to give it a more authentic board and batten look. The hooks are from Lowe's and only came in a brushed nickel finish, so I had to spray paint them. Unfortunately, a couple of them got a little nicked up when I was screwing them in, so I will have to touch those up at some point. I also debated wrapping the board and batten around on either side of the front door, but there were some logistical issues that I think would have made this look a little awkward. In the end, with Adam's opinion being factored in as well, I decided to just apply it to this one wall.

Funny to see coats hanging up when it was 90+ degrees when I took this photo

This area is far from finished. I have plans to add some artwork up above the board and batten. I am also dying to fix the lighting situation in this area. It's probably not obvious from the pictures, but the light that the builder installed is neither centered on the front door nor centered in the area of the actual foyer. Wish I would have noticed it before we moved in. I have since noticed several light fixtures in our home that are askew and it drives me crazy. Anyways, I'm not too fond of the light and would eventually like to replace it with something a little more interesting and also have the light relocated so it is centered on the front door. So there you have it!

By the way, I am realizing that I am incapable of writing a blog post that isn't verbose. I will try to work on that one people. Also, I have a crazy nice camera and my iPhone pictures still turned out better for this post. I need to take a class!

Also, I am probably going to keep putting a cry for help at the bottom of my blog posts in hopes that at some point, someone will read this who can help me. So here goes:

Is there anyone out there who can explain to me how Blogher works and how I use it in conjunction with my blog? I have started looking into it, but I guess I just don't completely understand how I can use it. If you read this, and are willing to share your experiences, please leave a comment so I can provide you with my contact info. Thanks!