The Foyer: Before and During

The front entrance is still awaiting a set of French doors to the hub room. In the meantime, why not tackle the entrance itself?

Here's a view of the front entrance from the hub room - this is before the hub room was finished - see the interior window, complete with blinds? Weird.

This is the direct opposite view of the previous shot...now with the hub room finished...the window has been removed, stud added and drywalled from the other side. Warm and welcoming entry, no?

It is definitely warm (and I like to think I'm a pretty welcoming hostess if you're prepared to ignore the construction). The radiator gives off heat during the winter like IT'S the boiler. As grateful as I am for that, I'm not keen on the many layers of paint covering the radiator. In order not to add to the problem, the cover must come off. I was originally going to have it sandblasted and then sprayed, but now I'm thinking about getting Hammersmith to make a custom cover. They did a bit of work for Norm in our last house. A small bit in comparison to this house where I also want them to build our hoodfan for the kitchen.

There are places that make all types of radiator covers - and we'll be back when we get to the living room's baseboard heaters. This is nice, but probably too deep and would interfere with the glass when we get the hub room doors in. I'm thinking something copper or brushed steel. Hammersmith will work from a sketch too: here's one idea.

Here's Rory giving the pre-work tool inspection. I really have to find a place where he can put that nose to work. He MUST sniff absolutely everything.

Sniffing takes a lot of out of dog. So does supervising. Note the yawn.

Cover off.

These shelves, and the lovely yellow acrylic insert are on the left side when you walk in, opposite wall from the radiator. Obviously dated, but they would have to go in any event since my experience is that any surface area becomes the default repository for whatever you walk in the door with. (Another good reason not to use the deeper style of radiator above - a key shelf is one thing, but if you can put your groceries on it it's too big.)

Even getting rid of the acrylic helps! These shelves, like all the casing and baseboard in the house, are solid mahogany. We'll repurpose the wood. Somewhere.

All gone. It opens right up into the living room. We'll not be wanting it quite that open, so we're looking at a glass waterwall. Think something like this only smaller scale.

The base the shelves sat on is hollow (making for relatively easy installation of the central vacuum inlet last fall) and it currently holds a planter box. A south facing yard with low maintenance perennials is one thing, I don't think anybody wants to see me torture plants inside a north-facing entrance. The light fixture is new, purchased in Edmonton for a pretty deep discount. The old one went to my cousin's cabin - rustic to rustic I say.

The other source of light is the skylight. Or whatever it is. Again with the acrylic covering inside, then a square tunnel of mirrors out to the roof. One of the mirrors has to be replaced and the cover has got to go.