Project progress

I've been working on our "entry way" in our town home.  We actually honestly don't have an entry way, we just call this space right under our stair case our entry way.  Anyways, I re-purposed this an IKEA sofa table, it was beautiful and looked like new....only to find it was way to big for the spot.  The spot is sort of awkward.  It looks way to plain to NOT have something there.  But only a certain size shelf or table will fit.  It used to look like this:

So many issues here.  The white didn't match a single thing in our family room.  Plus, it was so open and showed all our junk!  Our cube shelf behind the dining room table helped with that.  While I love the IRISH stuff, we have to find a new place for Ireland, because it was too much green in this space - it didn't match!  Frodo's kitty condo got nixed from here too, it's fun for him but way too ugly for our public space!

So here is what we ended up with:

We had this shelf from Target in the basement, so we brought it up and it fits nicely in the space.  Don't worry we still have to jazz it up and decorate it.  The B I bought from JoAnns and painted black/brown which matches all our furniture. 

For our wedding we got adorable little cocktail plates that have cities on them.  We hardly every use them for parties (always use plastic for parties!  lol) so I decided to use them for decoration.  What do you think?

There are six different plates that have six different cities on them.  I love them here because it introduces our "travel" theme in the house (London in the family room, NY in the dining, Tuscany in the Kitchen, Paris in the bedroom, etc...)  We still have to fill that shelf with stuff.

 Close up!

 As for how I hung them, I stole borrowed a little idea from Young House Love where you trace your pictures on newspaper or ads and cut them out.  Then, with painting tape, you hang them up and move them around until your heart is content with the placement.  This way, you don't ruin your walls by putting lots o holes in them!

You measure down where your nail will hang off the frame, or in this case, the plate and draw an X on your ad where the nail will go.  Then, put your nail right through the X.....

 It's a genius idea.  My walls thank Young House Love and whoever else thought of this idea, it is truly genius!!  So anyways...then you have all your nails up and you just slip the paper out from under them.  The painters tape allows you to stick the paper to the walls and remove them without ripping paint off.  Genius....

Then you hang all your lovely pictures, or plates, viola - all done!!!

Here is a close up shot of one of the plates, LONDON of course:)

So that is what I was working on this week!  I'm also about halfway done Bella Tuscany.  I'm off to read that now...I have to get to bed early since Career Day is tomorrow!  It's my first as a school counselor! 

Have a great week everyone!!