Collecting Keys

When you come home, what's the first thing you do? If you're like me and the big guy the first thing you do is put down your keys. Well, ok, for us maybe the first thing we do is pet Loki, but the keys are right after that.

This is the wall that separates the kitchen from the pantry/laundry room area. It's what leads you into the garage. For us, it's one of the first things we see when we get home. Because of that, I wanted it to look a little more fun.

(I took these before pictures after everything was already up. You can see the nails where everything winds up, but this gives you an idea of how the wall evolved and the thought process involved in getting it there.)

It started off pretty bland.

I found the key rack at Anthropologie. I love that store. I love the quirky home accents they have. We've got a few all over the house. I liked the vintage look of this key rack.


I figured the key rack would be a nice tie in to two paintings I've had for a long time, maybe since college? I guessed that they'd be too feminine for the big guy. While I still think they would be for the main part of the house, he liked them just fine for this little corner. So up on the wall they went.

They were too snug in their original placement, so I spread them out. We had plenty of wall space to fill up here, so I wasn't concerned about taking too much space. But what to do with the rest of the space? It needed something to fill up the beige.

So we decided to try these vintage keys from Pottery Barn. At only $19 for the set I was pretty excited. We broke them up and tried a few next to the front door, but it really didn't work with the room or the space. So we brought the entire set back by the garage door.

I'm much happier with the whole arrangement here. Not bad for some pieces that got pulled from other parts of the house. I even like that our keys blend in.