DIY: Homemade Boot Tray

No entryway or mudroom is complete without a place to store your wet or muddy boots and shoes.  Here are a couple of easy and cute ideas on how to make your own.

Good Housekeeping: Cork-Lined Tray

Gather a well-worn baking or jelly-roll pan (or buy an inexpensive new one), a roll of cork (from an office-supply store), a pencil, and scissors. Measure the sheet's interior; cut cork to fit, and place in the pan (don't worry, the shoes' weight will flatten the cork); replace as needed. 


Martha Stewart: Pebble-Filled Tray

Fill your tray with stones (found at garden centers). Ice and snow will melt and drain through the rocks to the bottom of the tray, so your boots won't stand in a puddle. Most of the moisture will evaporate, but you should clean out the tray regularly.


I'm loving the pebble-lined tray. I wonder if I can pull it off or if I'm just asking for trouble.  I can L'il Buddy strewing pebbles throughout the house on a daily basis.

First Impressions: The Front Door

To me, a front door can say so much about a house and it's owners.  Apart from the yard (if you have one), the front door makes the first impression to your guests and passerby and sets the tone for the rest of your home.  A lot of pressure, no?

While it may not have such significance to everyone, I for one, truly believe in this theory.  Which is why it irks me so much that our front door is: (a) plain white; and (b) unfinished.  When we moved into our 1968 rambler-style home, the front door was big, heavy and unattractive.  It was a brown steel door with a teeny-tiny window (with yellow-paned glass) and it didn't fit our style (really, mine!)  We ended up replacing the door a couple of years ago with a fiberglass door that had a frosted, door-length center pane with a subtle design.  I love the light that it lets in...but the door is one that is meant to be painted.  And we haven't painted it yet.  It drives me crazy to see this bare, white door day in and day out.  The problem is, part of me is scared to commit to a paint color.  The decision is a big one! Should we paint it red to add some character to the house? Would that be too bold? Our neighbors up the street have a beautiful Seafoam-green door that I admire when we pass by.  How would that look?  My husband is an advocate for painting our door black. That just seems to harsh to me for our rambler, and seems like it would be more appropriate on a large, manor-style home.  Whatever color we paint the door, we need to take our decorative window shutters into consideration.  They are currently a rust color and we'd need to paint the shutters to match the front door for a streamlined look.

Until we can decide on the perfect color, our front door remains...off-the-shelf-white.  What does that say about us to passersby, I wonder? That we are lazy? Unimaginative? Indecisive? Procrastinators? Or maybe, just that we like having a white door?