In the Fall of 2010, we started work on a rather extensive project to update the front of our house. Since this had been the back of our house when it was built, our main goal was to create an obvious and welcoming front door and entry way space where none had been needed before.

To accomplish this, we made a small addition under the existing porte cochere roof, which allowed for an expanded entry way, a new front door, and a front porch.

The “Before” pictures:

The “After” pictures:

Inside, we gained a couple of much-needed closets and updated the adjacent powder room. And outside, we re-poured a sizable portion of the driveway, removed some large oak trees, and re-landscaped around the house.

Read more in the posts below.

Posts about 'Entry Way Addition'

Since the first time we saw our house (a little over 3 years ago now!), there have been a few areas that haven’t been exactly what we hoped for … what else can you expect with a 95 year old house?  And even though the house was in really good condition when we moved in,…

A key change we’re looking to make with our entry way addition is to make the front door more of a focal point on the front of the house so that it’s less easily overlooked by visitors. The plans we initially discussed with the architect involved refinishing and reusing the same front door we have…

At the end of July, we decided it was time to act on some plans we’d had drawn up a few years ago for a small addition to solve several problems with the current configuration of our entry way.  We had two contractors come out to take a look at the drawings and give bids…

We officially signed and sent back the bid for the project to make some adjustments to our entry way and porte cochere last week.  At the time, the contractor thought it would be a couple of weeks before they’d be ready to start on our project, but I got a call today and they’re planning…

Today was the first work day for the project to expand the entry way and add a front porch to our house in place of the existing porte cochere.  The task for the day was to straighten out the existing roof structure so that the height looks consistent between the left and right sides ……

Work on the entry way project was delayed for a few days last week while the contractor worked with the city to get permits for our addition & driveway, but work resumed today and they made a lot of progress!  The old concrete step and driveway under the porte cochere was broken out and digging…

A lot happened on the entry way & driveway project today, but, unfortunately, we didn’t get very many pictures due to the rain that came through late this afternoon. The contractors worked this morning to finish digging the footing for the new entry way addition, the city inspector stopped by to check out their work,…

Here’s some pictures of today’s progress on the entry way addition & driveway project: A lot of progress has been made in the last couple of days on the foundation for the new addition.  Concrete footings were poured yesterday and cement block walls were added today.  There’s also been a lot of progress in breaking…

The Trees are Down!

It took a little longer than we expected, but after 2 full days of work, the tree service has finished cutting down a blue spruce tree in the back yard by the pool and two oak trees in the front yard that were in the center of the circle drive. The blue spruce came down…

For our new entry way addition, we had originally planned to install oak flooring and have it finished on-site to match the existing wood floors that are under the carpet in the rest of the house.  Last Thursday, though, when the contractors were discussing where to place the opening in the basement wall for the…

Driveway Update

I haven’t stayed on top of posting pictures of the progress on our entry way addition & new driveway over the last couple of weeks like I’d planned, but there has been a lot of progress made, so better late than never, right? Here are some pictures of the new driveway that’s going in in…

Even though there hasn’t been a lot of progress made on the entry way addition in the last couple of weeks while most of the efforts have been focused on finishing the new driveway before the weather turns cold, I decided last week that it was time to start thinking about paint colors for the…

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