Our Entryway: Sherwin Williams Colonnade Gray

Our New House: Starting (and ending) with the entryway

Well, here it is, the FIRST blog post about our new house and I figured there was no better place to start than the entryway!

BTW, THIS IS THE HOUSE THAT ALMOST BROKE ME. WE LIVED IN IT FOR 3 MONTHS AND MOVED, HENCE ONLY ONE POST ABOUT IT.

Oh, this house. I love the view, we BOUGHT it for the view, however, I don’t love the house (note that I said house not home). And while I am having fun adding my own personal touch to it, I know already that this will be a short-term adventure (well, shorter than the usual 4 year stint anyway). We all know that Tim is really the only thing I’ve kept for a long period of time anyway – lucky bugger.

But, OOOOOH that view…

Every day is completely different from the last! We can see everything from the eastern sunrise to the western sunset, it’s pretty stunning. However, the one thing we don’t see much of is the sun and my lil’ Ginger self has a BIG problem with that.

When we viewed the house, I was worried about its northern exposure and the cool nature of the products that were in the house – products that wouldn’t accommodate my love of warmer colours. And I had a right to worry, these cool colours go against my nature! But I like a challenge and I’m RISING to it, starting with a case of wine the entryway.

Before, it had great bones with beautiful light fixtures and flooring, but the cool paint colour just wasn’t ma jam.

After, I’m loving the softness of the new paint colour, SW Collonade Gray.

I would’ve naturally gone warmer, but seeing as this is an open layout home, I had other things to accommodate and Collonade was as warm as I could go without alienating the needs of the house (because it’s not all about me ALL of the time…just joking, it is).

I wanted a dramatic front door colour, so I chose Urbane Bronze, which is just a DEADLY dark greige with a green undertone. And rather than keeping it white, I chose to paint the trim around the door, adding to the impact but simplifying it at the same time.

I loved the large clock in the entryway of our last home so much that I decided to buy a new one for this house – here it is on Wayfair (what can I say…I like big clocks and I cannot lie!).

Read all about Big Clocks here

The original colour, Sherwin Williams Crushed Ice was throughout a lot of the house and looked too cool for my tastes when compounded by the (ahem) extreme northern exposure in the open layout area (which you’ll see in a few weeks).

Collonade Gray offers a softer approach and takes advantage of the little southern light that we get (only the entryway and my office, the rest is north)

Functional and pretty, what else could a girl ask for? SUNSHINE, SOME FRIGGIN’ SUNSHINE PEOPLE!

Anyway, I’m sure you can feel my angst over this house.

The stairwell was…a stairwell. Thrilling, I know.

Again, Collonade Gray to save the day! However, Collonade CAN pick up a very (very) vague green undertone, which made me twitch a bit with the gray carpet (which leans to the purple side of cool). By lightening Collonade Gray by 25% I was able to cut back almost ALL of the green, while still having a soft, subtle, warm gray while still keeping a seamless transition from the main living area.

And the funny thing is that I used to despise feature walls, but that’s because I saw so many abused ones – wrong spot, wrong colour. I am, however, a HUGE fan of a well-placed, well-planned colour added to what would otherwise be a pretty booooring transition space. I went with BM Gibraltar Cliffs. I’m usually not into these types of colours, but this HOUSE is, so I tried to blend my tastes with the needs of the house – and HOT DAMN, it worked, I actually love it!

The small powder room is right off of the entryway, so I wanted to include it, showing you how the layered colours create a GORGEOUS West Coast inspired palette. The bathroom is painted SW Anonymous with Cambria Quartz countertops in Bellingham.

Before, it was just fine, but I do love my deeper colours…

After, Anonymous adds depth and interest to the room and goes fab with my oversize artwork, which you can JUST see in the next photo.

My office is ALSO off the entryway, but we’ll save that black beauty for another blog post – that’s right, black, just like last time!

Looking from the front door toward the living room is a tricky shot with the light coming in. Out that window is the ocean view, but I definitely don’t have the skills to get that AND the interior at the same time! The best I have is this before shot (with my phone).

In photos like these, it’s hard to really see the shift in paint colour as the first photo wasn’t the best quality (to say the least). And of course, Sir Douglas had to show up to the party, I had to kick him out of almost every shot, but I let him stay for this one.

I’d used this MASSIVE 7′ long canvas piece in our last entryway and LOVED it. I was so glad we had the perfect wall to accommodate it in this house too…

So there you have it – the beginning of our adventures with this house, stay tuned for the main living area in the coming weeks!

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