sarah anderson: Entryway

I absolutely love decorating: our house, our baby, gifts and packages, cards, parties, pancakes, cookies...basically everything. If there's a way to make something pretty, there's a good chance I'm already scheming on ways how. So, when we bought our house I thought I'd be in interior design heaven and would be so excited to decorate each and every room, BAM.

Not so much. Owning our house vs. renting a condo and the 'permanence' I feel with decor, like Sydney's nursery, have created the perfect storm to paralyze me with design decisions. Each room is taking so much longer to decorate than I anticipated, and the decisions I have made are often second (third?) guessed. I've been mulling over the perfect entryway ever since we bought our house, and after a year-and-a-half I am SO pleased to finally say it's finished!

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago (fine, over a month ago) that I had commissioned my husband to make a table for the entryway. I was looking for a rustic piece--really rustic, not Pottery Barn-rustic--but in dark wood with a modern twist (ideally I didn't want the entire thing to be dark, but after looking at so many different tables, I gave up). Well, I'm insane because the piece I envisioned is a unicorn and doesn't exist. ENTER JORDAN.

IT EXISTS! My husband is the shit -- for reals. He's so talented that I seriously try and convince him on a daily basis to open an Etsy shop with me (I'm wildly unsuccessful). Out of normal wood bought at Home Depot, he created a very rustic, very sturdy, very dark reclaimed wood entryway table with a multi-stained chevron top. I'm ob-sessed. Note: I have no idea how he made the table. I know how he made it look like reclaimed wood (beat the crap out of all the wood pieces using hammers and chains, then blow-torching them before finally staining), but beats me how he actually made the table. Maybe one of these days I'll get him drunk enough to guest blog and tell us how. ;-)

As Jordan was making the table, I stumbled across a gorgeous, stately mirror at the Restoration Hardware outlet near our house; it was huge and heavy with a slightly elegant twist. The aged silver color was exactly what I was looking for (don't you love it when that happens?), and I love the vintage-y beaded trim. But the best part? I got it majorly on sale. Woo!