Entryway and Laundry Room

The Thorn Cove Abode Summer Home Tour continues with a peek at my Entryway and Laundry Room! They haven’t been getting the respect they deserve lately. {Let’s be honest, nothing has with that Carolina Cottage taking up all my time!} So glad to have that cutie wrapped up and on Airbnb!

If you look a little harder at the image above you will notice you can actually see my laundry room from the entryway. In the original house plan, this was a very large half bathroom and our laundry was a closet laundry. If you know me, you know that won’t work. There’s no where to pile up a weeks worth of laundry in a closet 😉

We do actually still have a half bath on the first floor- so nice when we have guests over. I actually just turned the original closet laundry into the half bath. Personally, I think it’s a much better use of space!

I don’t mind my laundry room where it is. First of all, it’s super cute and second, it’s so convenient right off the entryway. Everybody can just toss their laundry down the stairs and it gets magically taken care of {again, joking.} Another reason it’s so perfect in this spot is we were able to add a laundry chute because the laundry is right under the kids bedrooms! So much easier than just throwing laundry down the stairs. Lol

Entryway

Welcome to my home! Let’s chat about the entryway a little more before doing laundry. Isn’ that jute rug the cutest?

I know I am biased, but I love, love our staircase. When we were designing our new build to look older the entryway was so important. {Last month, I shared all about our front porch with the DIY gingerbread trim both of which set the tone of my style before you even come inside.} Once you enter through the double doors (love those doors!) you cross into a true foyer space. The foyer was important as I wanted a place for guests to be welcomed. Our family also needs a spot to kick off our shoes and set things down before coming in to just rest and enjoy.

The Staircase

I sourced the giant newel post on Ebay before our build! It’s from the 1800’s if you can believe it! The balusters and everything else are new, but I tried to match the style of the newel post as best as possible. The stairs are 100+ year old white oak that was reclaimed (talk about dreamy.) We sourced the lumber for the staircase from a place fairly local to us, Old American Lumber located in Union, SC. The shop has warehouses full of old lumber and they cut our step treads and finishing pieces to match the 100+ year old flooring in our home. Truly amazing!

Shortly after finishing our build, I added reclaimed bead board to the staircase wall. I felt like the space needed something to make it appear more old than new and bead board is my favorite wall finishing. All of the homes I grew up in were covered in bead board. So having them in my home is part aesthetic, part comfort for me.

The large wall space over the staircase can sometimes be tricky to decorate. I’ve tried several decor arrangements, but finally landed on adding my collection of old signage here. I love the fun vibe it adds the the otherwise bland stair wall. And it’s a lot of fun to have something to collect to add to it. I actually have two signs to add soon!

The Laundry Room

I wanted each room to be loaded with character- just like an old home 😉 There were no details skipped in historic homes and I wanted our new old home to feel the same. Designing every cabinet and drawer in this room was important. I drew the design over and over again until I was able to squeeze in every single thing I thought we may want out of a laundry/mudroom. This room is tiny by mighty. I was able to add a laundry sink, tons of storage in floor to ceiling cabinetry, a laundry chute (hidden by cabinetry) and a boot bench! 

Entryway and Laundry Room Finishing Details

The flooring is real brick tiles. I get questions about the flooring a lot and how we clean it, etc. I honestly love it for a mud room/laundry room. The roughness of  the flooring helps to grab anything off feet and shoes before walking through the house. It’s pretty simple to maintain and I don’t have to mess with it often. I just spot clean with hot water, dish soap and a scrub brush. I’m even able to just run over it with my vacuum when I’m doing the rest of the house with no issues. So very low maintenance, which I love. {I love this basket to help carry things around the house and this one is so cute instead of a plastic hamper.}

Every room needs hanging wall space so I added cute little rabbit hooks as a nod to my husband’s business mascot!

The latches are from Van Dykes, one of my favorite places to shop for reproduction home finishes. {Here’s the latch I used for the sink cabinet.} I’ve used their products in several rooms in my house and just love everything they offer! The paint colors in the laundry room are the same as the rest of my downstairs, Edgecomb Gray by Benjamin Moore and Snowbound by Sherwin Williams.

Functionally Beautiful

Isn’t the bench so pretty? The laundry room doubles as a mud room so it’s nice to have a spot to sit and take off boots and even just look out the window. Of course, I wanted to add my antique mini washboards in the laundry room! The design and lighting of this room actually make laundry less like a chore (not really, but a girl can dream.)

I’d love to know what you think of the entry and laundry room! Were you surprised by any of my selections?!