Entry way makeover

This is the first of 3 flooring projects.  The entry first, then the kitchen, then the family room.  We broke out the tile by the door and ripped out the carpet to all the doorways leading from the entry.  Now we can replace all the carpet separately in each room as needed instead of all at once.

 

Wonderboard first.... I had to do it right, or my brother-in-law the temple builder would have had me tear it all out and start over.

Travertine with a marble inlay around the perimeter.  I think we saved about $2,000 doing this ourselves, but I won't count up the hours I spent doing it...it may not work out to be minumum wage.  At least, I didn't give up many hours from my day job, just a bit of sleep, and those hours are pretty inexpensive.  I only hit 4:00 AM once....  Deanne helped when she could, but most of it was a one-man job.  She felt guilty to go to bed without me so she either stayed up doing stuff or fell asleep on the couch waiting for me.

 

 

We have wanted to change our pathetically small chandelier since we moved in 10 years ago, (see the photo on the left)but we knew to replace it with one that fills the space of our entry (see photo on the right) would be very expensive.  Well, we lucked out and found a used one for $300 that does the job quite nicely.  It takes a little getting used to, but it's a huge improvement.  It weighs 90 lbs so it was an adventure getting it up.  I made sure the kids didn't stand under it for the first few hours, but so far so good...

Now on to refinishing the kitchen floor...