Entryway Makeover Part 1: The Power of Paint

One of the features of our home that I love is the dedicated entryway. It’s so nice to have a place to stand and talk with people who come to the door. I love having a “public” space.

But right now, it’s pretty bland.

BEHR® sponsored this blog post. The opinions and text are all mine.

Because it’s the first impression of our home, I didn’t want to wait any longer to bring it up to date. Eventually we want to do some kind of complicated woodworking in there, but we are pretty burned out from working on the craft room, so I know it’s not going to happen for a while.

Paint to the rescue! I decided to go ahead and give the room a fresh coat of paint and change out the baseboards to match the ones we are installing in the rest of the house.

Since the room is small, but gets plenty of natural light, I wanted to go dark and bold… navy blue! I also knew that I needed to buy quality paint. Because so much direct sun hits the walls, I didn’t want fading to be a problem. Plus a dark, bold color like that? Yeah, a little scary.

So I went to Home Depot and bought a gallon of Behr’s best interior paint, MARQUEE. BEHR MARQUEE paint is guaranteed to have one-coat coverage if you select one of their colors. I didn’t do this. I had them color match Benjamin Moore Hale Navy. It is a favorite among creative types online and I knew they would steer me in the right direction. Did I mention that I was super scared to go dark? I didn’t want to pick the wrong color and regret it, so I went with the sure thing.

I started by reading the back of the paint can. You should do this every time you paint. Seriously! Then you’ll know exactly how long to wait between coats, how the manufacturer recommends applying, what temperature it should be, etc. There is so much good information right there on the can!

Then I did all the normal paint prep: I thoroughly cleaned the walls with a wet rag. I patched some holes the previous owners left for us and covered them with spray texture. Next, I primed over the patches. I’ve learned the hard way that if you don’t add a layer of primer on patch jobs, they show through with an uneven sheen and they never look good. Then I taped off the ceiling, layed paper down on the floor and went to town!

I did one coat at about 10:00pm. When I woke up in the morning, I realized that painting in the semi-dark that late at night may not be the best idea. I missed a few spots. So I did one more coat of paint. But still, the coverage was pretty darn good.

Are you ready to see the transformation?

It’s a huge change, that’s for sure. Drama, sophistication, contrast. I love it!

Doesn’t it make the white door and white trim pop?! So crisp! I even think it makes the tile look prettier. The power of paint never ceases to amaze me.