Entryway
Executive summary: Welcome to our home! As with our last place, I claimed a little spot outside the front door for shoes, and made the most of the short hallway that leads into the main living space to facilitate the daily comings and goings of our family.
Hello hello, it’s so nice to have a dedicated entryway into our home! One of the things I like about our particular condo unit is that we have this little alcove off the main walkway that is purely ours. It’s not the most beautiful spot in the world (hi, water heater door, how nice of you to also be here), but it’s ours to utilize, and I have put it to work holding our shoes so that the muck stays firmly outside. I so dislike having to wipe the floors constantly when crud gets tracked inside, so having a little spot outside our front door to jettison the shoes is a must for me. Ok, fine, it’s a luxury, as so many homes don’t offer this as an option, and I sure am happy to have it.
Console table and shoe rack: Yamazaki Home | Floor mat: Target
I’ve sung the praises of our compact console table and shoe rack before – they’re both by Yamazaki Home, which specializes in clean lines and small space living. The console table was the perfect miniature size for our previous home, and it’s once again tucked itself neatly into a corner here. I use it every time I come in and out to hold bags and such while I fumble with the keys or the toddler. This table saves me a few repetitions of bending down every day, and I really appreciate the break when most of my waking hours are spent performing weight-lifting exercises and minor acrobatics that aren’t gentle on my back (translation: being a parent of young children).
Hall tree: Pottery Barn | Wire basket: Target | Canvas print: Minted
Once inside (this view is facing the front door from our living room), we have a tiny hallway closet, which I mostly use to store the vacuum, bulky winter clothes (which are rarely needed in California), and diapers in a central location. The everyday jackets and outerwear that accompanies each season is kept on a hall tree. I use the shelves on the bottom for my purse, umbrellas, a bowl of keys/wallets/etc. In short, all the things I need to come and go while chasing after two kids who have trouble staying still. I seriously don’t have time to reach into the closet to grab or drop off these items in the scramble to get in or out of the house with our human hurricanes! So this stuff lives out in the open, but is hopefully corralled in a reasonably organized way. I opted for a hall tree that is open in the back (as opposed to solid and sturdier) because the thermostat is on the same wall, so I couldn’t put anything in front of it that would block access to the controls.
Let me now explain where the other openings in the entryway lead. On the left (between the front door and the closet) is the hallway that leads to the second bedroom, hallway bathroom, and laundry closet. On the right (between the front door and the hall tree) is the flex space that leads me to describe our home as a “2.5-bedroom” condo. I closed off the opening with a curtain on a tension rod in lieu of a door (for context, we purchased our home through Stanford faculty housing, which comes with a lot of rules – see fuller explanation here), and we’ve turned the space into a pseudo-bedroom by adding custom plantation shutters to the pony wall. It used to be a big 8’-wide opening, but now we can rotate the louvres to alternately let in light (during the day) and provide privacy (during the night). Right now, this is our guest room, handy for when the grandparents visit, but when the kids get their own bedrooms in a few years, hubby and I will move in and make this the mini majestic master bedroom. I promise I’ll write about it when that happens.
Flex space-turned-pseudo-bedroom off the entryway
Now, it would be a wasted opportunity not to call your attention to the blue doors. =) I was initially very set on a particular shade – I had in mind a dusty dark blue, but accidentally ended up with something brighter and bluer than expected, especially with all the sunlight that this unit gets. I know everyone says you need to paint samples in the actual space because the way the color reads is dependent on every individual room and even changes throughout the day depending on lighting, but I didn’t have the time, so I decided to go with “close enough is good enough.” And I’ve grown to be a big fan of this Benjamin Moore “Admiral Blue,” despite it not being what I’d imagined. Close enough and I’m very pleased with how it turned out! I had all the doors in this unit painted, and you’ll see them peeking out here and there in the home tour. Why the doors and not the walls, like most people would do? Well, with two young kids, scuffs and dings are inevitable. It’s much easier to magic erase and/or spackle a white wall – I don’t even need to touch it up with paint. So I decided that we’d keep the walls white, but I felt that this condo could use an infusion of color. I happened to come across a picture online of a home with interior blue doors and it lodged itself in my brain. So when the time came, I asked the handymen to paint our doors blue and I have no regrets, unless it turns out that the doors become a magnet for the kids’ abuse!