entry progress

We are 2/3 done with updating the entry way! I'm not sure if it's having three kids that makes finishing a project take a million years, or the fact that one of those kids is still a baby, or both (probably both), but sheesh! Everything just takes longer these days- from a load of laundry getting washed, dried, and put away to DIY projects- infinitely longer than planned or intended. So even finishing these two things felt like a huge accomplishment!  

Before: 

 Definitely in need of some character! I knew I wanted to do board and batten on that wall from the time we moved in, but figuring out what to do in that giant recess...that took some thinking. I knew I didn't want to put stuff up there...decor...just wasn't feeling that. I didn't want it to look cluttered, or too distracting and be a weird focal point that high on the wall. Not to mention there was a recessed light there like a shrine. 

After putting ship lap in our mudroom, I wanted to do the same thing up here, but didn't actually want to do it- haha. Seemed like more work than I wanted to get into on a ladder and with curves...then I saw a brilliant idea on Pinterest (of course):

fake ship lap. 

As in- drawn on with a pencil. 

Yep.

 We painted the back of it white, then when my parents were in town for Christmas my Dad used a level and a no. 2 pencil and drew lines on the wall like everything your Mom ever told you not to do as a kid. Now I probably wouldn't do this on a wall you could get up close to, but since it's this high up- you cannot tell the difference between this and the real stuff in my mudroom!  

No hassle involved. Well- maybe a little, a funny story actually. Mind you, my Dad and I drew the lines together. It's important to the story you know that he's a doctor and I'm a teacher. We started by marking lines up the wall every six inches. So we counted off: 6, 12, 18, 24, 32, 38...

Read that again.

We double checked it, then got to drawing the lines. Once we stepped back to see how it all looked, I noticed one of the "planks" looked bigger than the rest. We checked the measurements again. 

My Dad came to the conclusion it was an optical illusion because of the archway. 

I know...this is painful to read. 

It wasn't for several minutes as we were measuring for probably the 4th or 5th time that it finally hit me...6, 12, 18, 24, 32...wait....32? No. 32 is NOT a multiple of 6.

FACE PALM.

All I can chalk that up to is sleep deprivation, friends...for both of us, apparently.

 Ultimately we decided to leave it that way, because redoing it was going to be annoying! The varied widths just make it look more rustic. ;-) At least that's what we'll call it. 

 The light fixture is from Lowe's. I love that it creates some visual interest in an otherwise very empty space without being cluttered or 'decorated'- which was the whole point!

Not too bad for a total of $75 though! ($40 for the light, $15 for this recessed light conversion kit, and $20 for the MDF boards used in the board and batten). Huzzah!  

The last thing we'll do is update the chandelier. I'm not in as big of a rush to do that though because I want to finish the stinkin' laundry room! My attention span for DIY projects is small. I can't ever finish one thing completely before moving onto the rest- it's a problem! So at some point this year we'll revisit that.

 So until then, I'll just enjoy how it is now!

And laugh every time I look at that slightly bigger plank. ;-)