BonnieProjects: Foyer Update: Color and light

Monday, December 10, 2012

Foyer Update: Color and light

With all the guests we're expecting soon (28 for Christmas dinner and another 30 two weeks later for a party), we wanted to make sure our home was welcoming. What's the first room a guest sees? The foyer!

Is gold striped wallpaper and gold painted doors your style? Sadly, it was not ours.

Foyer, move-in day

When we first moved in, some of our beloved friends helped us out and tore down the gold striped wallpaper adorning our foyer. Surprise! It was pink underneath!

We spent the next few months scrubbing glue off the walls, and more or less got distracted doing other stuff around the house.

Then we realized it was already December! The current state of the foyer was decidedly unwelcoming. Pink walls covered in glue, caramel doors, and a light fixture anyone over 6 feet tall banged their head on. Yuck.

We started with the light fixture. Nothing like a bruised head to welcome you to a home! I browsed a lot online, and we visiting the lighting department of Home Depot at least five times. In the end, we just went with an inexpensive boob light. At two for $22, the price was phenomenal. It still held two bulbs, cast a white light, and sat close to the ceiling. Some of the fancier ones did the same stuff, but none of them really spoke to us. So boob light it was!

Nice improvement, huh? Tall folks and those appreciating soft white light will both appreciate this upgrade.

Now for those walls. In the glue removal process we damaged the walls a bit. We ended up calling in a pro to float the walls. (I tried doing it myself, but the hubs thought maybe I should practice my mudding in a less public area of the house). The guy said they were the worst walls he had ever seen, but he did a great job.

We decided to use a light grey for the walls, and white for the trim. We chose a grey that didn't seem to have strong undertones of any particular color, and decided on March Wind by Sherwin Williams.

I love love love the Emerald paint by Sherwin Williams. In one coat, it covered up all that pink and gold mess. It's washable, which is great for a narrow foyer like this. It's also zero-VOC, so it won't offgas carcinogens for the next ten years. Clean, healthy, happy. This paint is honestly my favorite home product of the year.

Let's see what the foyer is looking like now!

Fresh clean neutral paint, and a light fixture that puts out pretty white light and won't knock anyone in the head. Much more welcoming! Let's see a few more angles.