The back door entry space to my lower unit in my duplex was anything but welcoming. The walls were marked up, multiple spiders were making home to the corners, and the carpeting was worn out, holding a strong pet odor. It was one of the first spaces I chose to really tackle.
The picture taken on move-in day doesn’t appear to be anything overly revolting, but it was a bit depressing walking into this space as a new homeowner, especially when your first impression was the scent of “eau de dog”– and I didn’t even own a dog. So, I was more than ready for this back entry makeover.
Paint the Walls
And get out those creepy big spiders, please! I guess you could consider them my first tenants?!? Well, it didn’t take long for me to find the bravery to scale the ladder and smoosh those little creatures to death. I HATE spiders!!! I wiped down the spider guts, along with the rest of the walls in this space. They were pretty marked up from the years of tenants moving their things in and out through this space.
At my fathers’s help/suggestion, we picked up some drywall mud and did a little bit of repairing on the ceiling. It’s still not perfect, but it looks much better. These walls are 100 years old, so you can’t expect perfection!
Then we primed the walls. And them painted them a nice, plain white. I went with the same paint throughout my house, a white eggshell paint from Home Depot.
Pull up the Smelly Carpet
Pulling up carpet is pretty easy; the wooden stairs going up had some staples to remove, and the cement landing and stairs leading to the basement had it glued down. Underneath the carpet on the entry slab and going up revealed this retro-vintage-y flooring that had been installed prior to the carpet:
As fun as it is finding these old little surprises from the past, it makes a little more work since it’s one more layer to remove. I used the combination of a small pry bar, a scraping tool, and a sander to get this layer off.
Of course, there was also glue on the steps leading down to the basement. This was a paint to remove– sanding just gunked up the sand paper– so I had to use some muscle and scrape away as best as I could. There was also a papery substance (perhaps the bottom of the older flooring) stuck to the wooden stairs, so I used a combination of sanding, wetting and scraping, to get as much of that crud off as I could. So much work! It was definitely not as easy of a project as I thought it would be. But, I quickly realized that a lot of the projects I had in mind for my fixer upper had “layers” underneath the surface that I did not initially see!
Wow, look at all of that dirt. I also sanded down the center railing and used some wood filler to fix some of the major gouges in the surface. The trim above the entry door had a huge chuck missing, so I gobbed on some wood filler there too.
I wanted to wait until the plumber was finished with his stuff in the bathroom reno going on at the same time, so I had to live with it like this for a few weeks. At least the smell was gone, right?
Priming the Floor and Trim
The next step of the back door entry makeover involved priming. After getting as much glue and residue off the stairs as I could, I prepped the floor and trim with some Zinnser white primer. It looks like it went through some sort of winter wonderland transformation!
Painting the Floor and Trim
I started from the bottom of the stairs and worked my way up. This is not the ideal way to paint a staircase, but if I started at the top and went down, I would have ended up having to hangout in the basement for a while until it was dry before going back up. I used a small roller, and I taped along the edges to get a nice line. In the spots where paint bled through the painter’s tape, I did go over with an artist’s brush (I’m a little bit of a perfectionist with the edges). I did those touch ups a couple of weeks after the stairs. I completed at least two coats, three in some spots, since it was a light primer I was covering up.
Also, I painted the trim around the door and the window. First, I gave the window a good scraping because there was some peeling paint from weathering the elements over the years. I’m hoping to eventually replace the window, but this is a nice refresh for the time being.
Paint the Basement Door
I gave the basement door a fresh coat of paint. I went with a bluish tone. It had been blue before I painted it but it was more of a muted, gray-blue. The paint I used was more of a navy-with-a-hint-of-turquoise. Pretty, but not too bold. The picture doesn’t do it justice, in my opinion.
Add the Little Details
The last little bit of my back door entry makeover involved putting a few little details into the space to make it both functional and homey.
I put down a rug at the entry door and a second, matching one at the top of the stairs. There’s one of them in the picture above, but I decided those were a bit too “formal” for my taste, so I switched them out with a more natural-looking rug from Ikea. They’re just more my style.
I installed a curtain rod and put a sheer curtain up. The curtain rod is sheer, so it provides a little bit of privacy, but still allows light in. Now, I have a few little plants on my window ledge. They love this south-facing space with all the sunlight that pours in.
Lastly, I hung a set of hooks for jackets and bags. Below it, I put a little mat for dirty winter boots, flip flops, or other shoes I do not want trekking through my apartment.
Back Door Entry Makeover Episode 2
This was my first back door entry makeover. I did a similar thing to the entryway to the upstairs apartment…except on a much larger scale! That unit is upstairs, so there is a full staircase leading up to the apartment that I redid. Check out my post about it here!