Makeshift Mud Room

As most of you know I don't have a proper entry to welcome guests in my home. (who does anyway?) No where to put their coats, bags, gloves, etc. So I came up with this solution. Honestly I don't really like it. I cheaped out and got lazy, so this is what I ended up with:

I chose this stencil because I liked it and it was only $1.25. Others I looked at online were $20-80 a piece. Yikes! It's only about 3" square, but I figure that'd be ok. I was going for a wallpaper look using paint. Instead of consulting my mom who knows all about this stuff I hurried and started stenciling on my own. By the third row it was bleeding so bad it just looked messy and awful. It took me forever to do those 3 rows! Oh, and that was over the course of 2 weeks work. So I got lazy and decided that it was enough and would look fine as is.

Now about the hooks.I had some beautiful hooks picked out that would have been lovely and perfect. But it would have cost me around $60. *gulp* So I found some $1 black hooks that looked like they'd do just fine. I received them and they looked awful, especially on the white. Since yesterday was sooo nice and we were already outside in t-shirts (It's Dec. 12th!) I busted out the spray paint and fixed the problem.

I just couldn't get myself to spend so much money and effort on something that I'll have to leave with the house someday. It was a pain in the rear to do! All those people that say putting up this moulding is a breeze must be magical, because I had a hard time and still have a lot of touch up/finishing work to do on it.

In the end, though, I like it. It does what I need it to and the idea looks nice. And I know for the future what to spend the time/money on. If you can take the time and invest in some nice hardware it'd make all the difference. And a bigger stencil would've made it a lot less painful too. Because it would have looked tons better had I stuck it out and stenciled the whole thing as planned.