Delighted with a bright, new-to-me door seen here, I decided that my inside entryway needed some help also. I have this weird little nook right inside the door which previously included a piece of furniture with a drawer that barely fit into the space and held nothing particularly useful, a key bowl that we would never put our keys into because it lived directly next to a window (duh, very smart), and a pile of umbrellas and reusable shopping bags. Lovely. Who wants to open their door to clutter? Not me, sirrah!
Step one: clear out the space. Not recorded for posterity. Sorry 'bout that. Step two: figure out something to give the space some personality. Enter stage left: a stencil! I love stencils; especially all the fancy and modern ones that are coming out lately. To me, stenciling is the new and improved wallpaper (even though wallpaper is also having its updated moment as of late). The application is less messy albeit can be more time-consuming, the prep work is negligible (the same as painting a wall), and it is very affordable. I went to my fave stencil site, Cutting Edge stencils for some inspiration and/or to buy a stencil. I have bought from them before and they have a lovely product. Perusing their site, I knew I was looking for something fairly simple and graphic since it was such a small area. I saw the Harlequin Trellis stencil and fell in love.
From cuttingedgestencils.com
Simple and graphic, and I also really liked the pearlescent quality of the blue paint. Forty dollars is also pretty reasonable overall for a stencil that you can use forever. But...the design was so simple, I wanted to try to make it myself. Using vinyl and my Silhouette cutter, that's what I did.
First I used the Silhouette program to make about a quarter-inch wide lines that I would use as a kind of reverse stencil. I also cut out a diamond shape that closely matched the measurements of the one used for the stencil to use as a guide when placing the lines.
In essence, it worked. But man, was it tedious. It took about five sheets of just lines to fill the entire area, and as you can see in the picture above, some of the diamonds got a little...wonkified. To say the least. I made sure the ones at eye level were dead on and decided that I was not a perfectionist and in the scheme of things, it didn't really matter. Which I believe...wholeheartedly...yeah. For forty dollars I could have gotten perfect lines every time. I used Martha Stewart pearl paint in Jetstream; took a lot of coats. A lot.
It looks very light, but when contrasted against the white lines, it is not as subtle. It certainly doesn't hit you over the head, either. Who wants to be hit over the head when they walk in the door? Unless you have a bug on your head, of course...but I digress. I wanted a mirror to check lipstick and hair (and facial hair for my husband? I really have no idea what men would need to check) on the way out. I decided I needed a little white shelf, and I love how designers on HGTV use corbels all the time to fancify something. One trip to Home Depot later, and I was the proud owner of a pre-cut piece of pine, some corbels, and a little bit of trim.
Painted those suckers white and used Liquid Nails to adhere them all together. Laziness, thy name is Allison. A cool mirror from Target and little tealight chandelier from West Elm and here we are.
The picture below is actually the closest to the color, mostly blue with a hint of greeniness to it.
It's a good place to keep all of our umbrellas, and it is a more calming space to enter after a crazy day with students and whatever else. It's still a bit bare, so I'm working on a little something to be revealed later. Oh, the suspense! What do you think? Why not make a pretty little area out of a weird nook? Go get your nook on!