Neutral Painted Foyer Update

My hand might be permanently locked in the paintbrush-holding position. (Just picture Jim Carrey’s impression of “The Claw” in Liar Liar, and that’s me. Run, Max, run!)

Totally worth it though.  Because we just checked another room off of the to-do list!  Well… as far as paint goes anyway.

About a month ago, when we first moved in, our foyer had a lot of sunny yellow going on.

As much as I like sunshine and yellow, it was too much for me in here.

Plus, it had this faux aging finish that made the walls look kind of dirty. (Although, it makes me completely aware that a lot of us in this farmhouse style loving world are aging and distressing furniture all the time with chalk paint.  The irony is not lost on me.)

Between Robert, my father-in-law, and me, it took us weeks of on-again-off-again work to get this foyer painted.  I take back all the times I said I wanted lots and lots of trim and detail features.  (Just don’t tell the crown molding I said that.)

But now that it’s all painted, it’s puuuuurty.

We’ve been painting every square inch of trim in this house because it had this almond/beige color everywhere.  It’s not something I really noticed until we started painting the ceilings in Benjamin Moore Simply White, and then it was extremely noticeable that the trim looked dark and dingy.

See the difference?

I know that almond trim was a trend for a long time, but I really don’t think I’ll ever be able to let go of bright white if the almond trend comes back around.  White is here to stay, in my book.  Because it really is like turning on the lights and making everything crisp and clean in one swoop.

We painted all the way up our staircase too.  And by “we”, I mean my father-in-law climbed a ladder all the way to the second floor ceiling from our landing to paint crown molding.  I would have died.

For the wall color, we used Benjamin Moore Classic Gray, which is a very very light true gray.  There aren’t really any windows in our foyer, so we wanted to keep it as bright as we could to make the space feel larger with its 8 foot ceilings.  For the ceiling and trim, we painted in Benjamin Moore Simply White as we’ve done in all of the other rooms so far.

I still haven’t figured out what to do about the chandelier in this space.  I’m sure it’s an antique, but it feels too frilly for our style, so we’ll be keeping it intact and selling it to someone else who can appreciate it more.  Robert and I haven’t decided what we’ll replace it with yet though, so there it stays for now.

If you follow me on Instagram, I just shared a peek on my IG Stories of a gorgeous entry table I found on Craigslist for the niche beside the staircase.  I can’t wait to get it spiffed up and in this spot.  This foyer is now almost too neutral for me, but I know once we bring in that piece of furniture, new lighting, a little wall decor, some accents, and possibly a rug, it will have more texture, color, and contrast to revive it.

On our staircase landing, we already swapped out the 80s style sconce for this black and wood one I found on sale at Lowe’s for $16!

They now make Edison style daylight white LED bulbs, so we still can have the antique bulb look with bright, energy-efficient light.  The amber Edison bulbs we had in our last house always seemed too dark at night, so these will hopefully keep clumsy me from tripping up the stairs.

We painted the coat closet door and inside of the front door in Benjamin Moore Wrought Iron to match the rest of the doors we’ve painted so far too.  The outside of the front door still needs to be scraped to rid it of the layers of chipping paint, but we’ll get to it when we are able to spiff up the exterior of the house later.  (That knocker is definitely staying though. Forever and ever.)

The only thing that has gotten worse in our foyer is the view into my office, and by “office” I mean the room with the giant pile of who-knows-what.  Yikes. Avert your eyes.

It’s been our dumping ground while we get some of the other rooms settled and so I can decide what can go and what we can keep.  Since this house isn’t really the primitive, rustic type, I have a feeling a chunk of the decor from our old house will be destined for another yard sale.  Having a fresh start feels pretty spectacular.

So that’s where we are.  Still work to do but lots and lots of progress behind us.  In the next couple of weeks, we have plans to finish the last couple of projects in our living room, make a little change to our breakfast nook table, and finish our laundry room.  Whew! On that note, anyone else need a nap?

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