10 Ways To Make Your Entryway Stylishly Welcoming
Your entryway introduces your home and provides a preview of your personal style. Grand entrances with statement doors, architectural detailing, beautiful flooring, well-chosen lighting and personal touches create a strong first impression.
This post explores the use of elements like artisanal hardware, exquisite flooring and inviting lighting It will also provide lessons in scale, front staircase tips and most importantly, ensuring how your entry can make a strong and welcoming first impression.
1. Begin Outdoors
Entry Impressions Exterior: The exterior of your home makes the real first impression. Creating an experience from the sidewalk to the front door can be part of the fun! This photo of our Ansley Park project shows one of the grandest examples of this we’ve had the pleasure of working on.
Entry courtyards: Part of the scope of this amazing project was reworking the landscape, including a beautiful fountain imported from Europe. It serves as the focal point in the entry courtyard. The style and scale of this fountain work beautifully with the home’s historic architecture. The materials and silhouette create cohesion with the balustrades on the entry terrace.
2. Welcome with Doors
Think about light: At this home, custom doors mix glass, rich wood and artisanal hardware. The glass helps to let natural light into the foyer, while the overhang protects it from strong southern light.
Consider what’s underfoot: Think about what your visitors will be stepping on as they approach your door — a path way, steps and the front porch. Here, the stone pavers provide an elegant look that plays off the stone on the home’s exterior.
Add life with plants: The piece-de-resistance are two planters. They are scaled correctly and add color and life to the entry experience.
2. Make a Strong First Impression Indoors
Create a vibe: Similar to the previous photo, these doors let in the light, creating an inviting entry space. The handmade hexagonal floor tiles lend an earthy element. They anchor the space and set the warm, organic tone for everything else that awaits inside the house.
Tip: An easy formula for an entryway is Console Table + Lamp(s) + Mirror. The mirrors and table add curves to this space, with earthy accessories placed on top. The lamps provide obelisk-like shapes that blance in strong straight lines.
Wall finishes: The entry is a place where it’s worth splurging on materials. In this home, shiplap walls provide crisp cottage style. This is another element that sets the tone of the home’s style.
3. Declare Your Personality
An entryway is the perfect spot to show off a strong point of view.
A powerful punch: This elegant entryway is not that large, but it is grand. A statement-making painting declares that this is no ordinary house. And the intricate mosaic tile floor supports that statement and plays off the intricacy of the transom window over the door.
Lessons in scale: This entryway is also a good lesson in scale. It’s not large, but the large-scale painting is a perfect fit. Accordingly, a large and interesting light fixture matches the scale as well, adding a brass finish to warm things up.
If you need lighting but don’t know where to begin, we recommend checking out Visual Comfort to get started.
4. Don’t Neglect the Fifth Wall
Interior designers refer to ceilings as “the fifth wall.” And they are not to be ignored! Whether you use paneling, trays, crown molding, or as seen here, wallpaper, ensure your guests will remain impressed should they look up.
5. Consider Adjacent Spaces
Look left, look right: An entryway should also complement the rooms that are visible from it. Often this is a formal dining room or a living room. You may have noticed a sliver of intriguing black cabinetry located off this foyer. It’s a dark and moody library that plays beautifully off the entry’s finishes.
Create cohesion and contrast: The entryway’s mosaic tile flooring changes to wood that warms this dark room. And the view through to the dining room shows a lighter space. The wallcovering in that space plays off the entryway’s ceiling, creating a cohesive feel between all the spaces within view.
6. Create Connections
This small entryway is mostly closed off from other rooms. So a beautiful Oriental runner leads guests to the public spaces of the home. Overhead, a trio of elegant glass lights completes the same function from overhead.
Down the wide hallway from this entryway, a graceful arch signals that you are entering the family room. It’s a beautiful way to create some delineation. Also, it creates a transition between the foyer’s soaring ceiling and the room.
7. Make Staircases Look Seamless
Staircase elements: Many entryways incorporate a home’s main staircase. It’s important to coordinate the flooring with the staircase runs. You’ll also want to make the foyer’s millwork cohesive with the railings, handrails and newel posts.
In this traditional home, the hardwoods continue on the stair risers. The dark handrail also plays off the flooring. The traditional style of the railings coordinates with the style of the foyer’s wainscoting. Finally, the beautifully detailed chest adds contrast against the white walls.
In this home, the grand curved staircase is the big statement in the foyer.
Special details: A graceful curve on the handrail is an impactful detail.
8. Create a Useful Space
Historic precedence: Back in our grandparent’s day, a house usually had one phone that was often located in a foyer. Phone nooks, phone tables and a place to sit and chat often became part of an entryway’s architecture.
Seating: In this project, a custom banquette plays off this idea. While we no longer need to have seating next to a hardwired landline, we can always use a good spot to serve a welcoming drink or provide a space for an intimate conversation during a party. Or for scrolling on our phones!
Special Detail: We played off the shape of the banquette with the stair railing wall.
9. Create an Entry Vignette
Think about the front door view: It’s nice to create a lovely view straight across from the doorway for people to take in as soon as they enter your home. Here the handsome chest, artwork and accessories provide a vignette that shows off the homeowner’s personality and foreshadows’ the style of their decor.
10. Curate the Lighting
Plan lighting from the start: So far we’ve seen chandeliers, pendant lights and lanterns. In this eclectic home, we used art lighting to highlight a favorite painting. Figure out your furniture, art and mirror placement first, then plan any permanent light fixtures like sconces and art lights accordingly.
Learn more about art installation
We hope you’ve enjoyed these 10 ways to make your entryway stylish and welcoming. If you did, here are a few more articles that may interest you:
Preserving Charm, Adding Modern Luxury: The Art of Remodeling Historic Homes
The 6 Steps Ultimate Guide to Preparing for Your High-End Design Build Remodel
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