Painted Interior Doors

There are some design elements in a room that I think strike you right away.  Fabric choices on furniture.  Statement art on the walls.  A really interesting rug.  Kitchen countertops.  Fabulous Lighting.  Deciding on these things is important and definitely shapes the feel of your home.

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I also think there are some elements in a room that deliver a big impact in a more subtle way.  It's not secret that I love to paint things, and what I'm thinking about today are painted interior doors.  Maybe not the first thing you'd think to address in your home, but I love the way they warm up a space and create a good dose of contrast.  

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In our home in Richmond, I painted the inside of our front door black.

I also painted the inside of our back door and an interior bathroom door gray (Benjamin Moore's Gunmetal to be exact).  This small change did so much for the kitchen I thought!

Our current home has lots of options for painted interior doors.  There's the back of the front door, several doors in our dining room and the hallway, which in its current state is not interesting in the least.  It's lined with cheapo, hollow core doors that are just begging for some love.

My apologies for all the junk laying around…these photos were not styled :)

{I feel the need to explain the water dispenser you can see here…I have always been a tap water kinda girl.  Well, not in California.  According to the city's water quality report, Davis water may contain boron and hexavalent chromium (Erin Brokovich anyone?), so we aren't too keen on drinking it.  The trade off is this beauty in my dining room.  Philip's parents thoughtfully gifted us with water delivered to us for the year!  I'll happy take a water dispenser over toxins in my drinking water, thank you very much :) }

Baskets of laundry, always.  Also, a ceiling light fixture that I am so not friends with.

I could, however be friends with a blue door.

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Gray is nice…

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I think yellow is really pretty in this particular space.

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Maybe I'm just a wimp, but I'm inclined to go more neutral in our wee little house with 8' ceilings.

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Rachel Halvorson is uber talented and wrote a great blog post about dark doors.  One of her color recommendations is Sherwin Williams' Urbane Bronze, which is actually the color I painted the walls of our master in our Illinois house.  

Black is a classic choice, and you know what they say about it--every room needs a dose.  If you're looking around your room and noticing that you are lacking in the black department, why not grab a paint brush and give a door a quick makeover?

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We already have black countertops or else black would be a given for our front door.  I'm wondering if it might just be too much in our little place, and I should go with a gray or a brownish-black.  Hhhhmmm.  Too much or just right?  

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The thing I love about a project like this is you can knock it out pretty quickly without too much hassle.    So long as there aren't any tiny people running amuck (cue the nap time chorus!), you can paint a door without much fuss.  

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So, have I convinced you?  Who else is with me and is ready to paint some doors?!

Our Entryway

Thanks for all of your kind words about Mary Graham's birth story!  I am so happy to know that you all enjoyed reading it and that my experience can be an encouragement to others.  I love to talk about birth, so if anyone ever wants to chat, please let me know! :)

Moving on from one topic I feel passionately about (birth) to another--decorating!

I've been wanting to share some of the updates I've made around the house with you all for a while now.  Problem is I can hardly find the time to clean up around here, much less take photographs before my cleaning and organizing efforts quickly come undone.  If you're anything like me, you appreciate seeing photos of people's homes that look less than perfectly clean and organized.  I'm all for that kind of transparency (trust me, I've got lots of dust and laundry and dishes, etc.!), but for the sake of memorializing my little attempts at creating beauty amidst the chaos, I'd like to at least tidy up the space that's being photographed :)

When I last showed you our entryway, this is what it looked like:

And here it is now:

The term 'entryway' is a bit of a misnomer because this is simply the back wall of our living room.  However, in our little place, you can practically touch both the sofa and the kitchen counter from the front door, so entryway it is!

If you recall, I was inspired by this image I saw in a recent House Beautiful issue.

My parsons table is West Elm.

The lamps and shades are from JCPenny.  Ever since Paula posted pictures from Lindsey Ellis Beatty's house in Birmingham, I was set on finding a pair of lamps similar to the ones I spied in her living room.  She has the same West Elm table, but her lamps look like they could be Johnathan Adler maybe?  Anyway, I thought the curved shape was a nice complement to the angular lines of the parsons table.  At less than $60 for the JCPenny lamp and shade combined (I got them on sale), I was sold.

Do you spy her parsons table and lamps in the background?  ps. I'm obsessed with her whole house! (Source)

The storage ottomans are from Target.  We use them for stashing the kids' toys!  You can actually fit a lot of junk in them! :) I looked at lots of different styles, but found that most affordable ones were not the cutest.  I have plans to do something like Emily A. Clark did with hers, but in the meantime these were the least offensive fabric (they're actually a neutral herringbone pattern and nice looking as is, but I'd like to bring in a little more color with a different fabric), so I figured I wouldn't mind them till I can find the time to make new covers for them.

The woven basket is from HomeGoods and it's always filled with shoes.

The bamboo blinds are from Overstock.  We (and by we, I mean Philip.  must give credit where credit is due!) mounted them high above our windows, which I think does wonders for our moulding-less windows.

Here's a picture from before we moved in which I think highlights the need to mount the blinds high.  The windows feel choppy and your eye just kind of gets stuck.  It seemed to me that the ceiling seemed lower than it actually was or something.

Mounting the blinds high draws your eye up and disguises the fact that there is no charming moulding to enjoy around our windows without blocking the light.

Hooray for a pretty, welcoming spot to drop your keys, your sunglasses and your shoes.  And perhaps stash a toy or two as well :)