The soft clinking of the keys, a last quick look to check if my hair bun was not sliding like a ball, the charm of daffodils, and the fragrance of lilies greeted me goodbye just before I was going to have the worst date of my life (a story for another time or maybe conclusion), this is an article about entryway decor that I so closely curated for you to provide all the fixes for your entrance way and plan it like a French Grandma.
But before you age your choices like a fine wine, this article’s sponsor is First Mats.
First Mats is an English firm specializing in industrial-grade products, and though that may interest your man, in one of the later sections, we will learn how they craft one of the best indoor mats, helping you to customize your entryway decor.
Why is Entryway Decor Really Needed?
Unless you invite your guests from the house’s back door, entryways are significant for your decor plan to make the first impressions. While many homes lack this introductory space or their planning, this is a great area to sophisticatedly welcome visitors and limit their entrance if they are not needed; what can I do if I have disturbance rather than neighbors in my apartments.
Contrary to people who do not plan their entryways, there are homeowners, like my worst date, who plan them too much. For instance, they will add family photographs that no one needs to see in the first place or have naked shoes lying around, smelling like horse shit in the monsoon.
Too graphic? Let’s downplay it with some classic grandma ideas. Consider an entryway with a main door, then some space, and then a glass security door that cannot be opened unless the resident allows it. Once this door is open, you are in a welcome tunnel that has the perfect cabinet with seating and flowers, as well as cafe curtains to block unnecessary lighting. Next to this cabinet, there is a coat hanger where you can leave your artificial warmth alone and enter to be all cozy near the fireplace.
What do you think? Which one of these two scenarios would you prefer to be welcomed at? If you are sane and choose the latter, let’s take our imaginary diary and start working on entryway decor.
Note: The images in this article should be referred to as only an idea and not for copying the look as the tips that I am going to share are a product of my design and the steps will be more useful than any picture.
First, Entryway Essentials.
When people ask me why do we need entryway essentials? I reply the same reason you need a diaper for a baby, to make it neat and presentable. I mean, sure, your baby might look cute, but who doesn’t style their baby? It is as if Amy’s (Rachel’s sister in Friends) idea of being a baby stylist came true. So, let’s start shopping for the essentials for your entryway decor.
1. Security Devices.
If it’s not functional, it’s a mockup. While we may desire many unreal fantasies, at the end of the day, we have to go to work on Monday, and as much as you may want to avoid any boring aspect of your job or entryway, they are essential for their security. While I advise you to keep your boss locked in his ego to secure the first, to work on the entryway, ensure that any window in your entryway or even your house has metal bars or guarding. Further, give some thought to steel external doors or ones with steel padding. These may sound suitable for new homeowners, but in your case, you should ensure that the state of your doors and windows are not like a beagle, innocent and cute. Bring the characters of a do-or-bermann, and I am sure you will attract lesser people like Richard Trenton Chase. Now, the last things that you need to make sure of are the security devices and cameras, and you can take a breath until I write a dedicated article about home security.
2. Door Locks.
C’mon, you bsed about home security and now locks! This must be what your inner Lucifer might be telling you, but honestly, listen to the Jesus of your entryway decor, or be an atheist and keep reading.
Door locks and latches are not only essential for security but bring accents as well. When I detailed the interior color palette a few days back, an article you all gave immense love to, if only you were the kind of date whom I have gone out with, I exemplified how surfaces can bring great changes to it, and as we work on enhancing your entryway decor, just like a surgical expert of Korea, I am going to recommend you to check online for the best door locks and latches. You can also refer to our recent article about door latches.
3. Curtains.
I am not asking you to get those heavy drapes that take too much effort to be styled. Instead, all I am saying is to take your privacy a little seriously, unlike what an American mobile company did last month with a robotic idiot. This point is useful if you have a window or a vented entry door, which I do not recommend unless you have a solid door inside with no vents. In either case, use cafe curtains and ensure they are not see-through.
4. Coat Hanger.
How cosmopolitan can you get? An entryway with coat hangers speaks for you and tells you that you have been raised by a sophisticated family. While I will tell you about their arrangement in the later sections of the article, you should know that these essentials are of two types, floor hangers and bold wall hooks that can accommodate the heavy collars of your coats.
5. Cabinet.
A nice entryway cabinet should be one that not only corresponds well with your design palette but also has enough surface space for your key dish, letters, a vase of flowers to make you look rich, and leg room for an ottoman or jute baskets carrying your towers, yes towels for your monsoon-wet visitors.
6. Ottoman.
You must not have a coffee here, although I will make it cozy enough for doing that, but yes, an ottoman is needed in case you want your bottom to comfortably sit and wear shoes. You can always switch it with a chair if your fiance or partner gets ready at a turtle pace.
7. Mirror or Artwork.
Some things are just meant to be there. While we may consume most of the area of a mirror with the flowers on the cabinet, it is still essential to let you take the last look at what living at home has done to you. You can always replace it with artwork if you are not fond of your face, what my dermatologist apparently thinks about me every time I refer to him for acne, but yes add something, and do not let the wall look empty.
8. Jute Baskets.
Be arranged and use jute baskets to store essentials for your entryway. These can range anywhere from towels to things you might never use but still think need a place in the household or even those extra footwear that you last wore months back, not because you are the Kendall and the Louvre but because the shoe companies hate your feet.
9. Rug.
Let’s get serious. I do not want you to buy those unnecessarily slim or broad rugs, instead measure your hallway and get a rug that is of width similar to that of the distance between the outer edges of your door frames, leaving room for an empty floor between the walls and its sides. Following a color palette will help here as well and do not get rugs that are too light otherwise you will have a dust magnet and lord forbid if you have those uncustomed guests who wear their footwear like they have been glued for life, you are doomed.
If you are someone who repels rugs for their high cost of purchase and maintenance, I advise you to consider First Mats. You can not only order made-to-measure entrance mats from them, but if you have kids, I can assure you that they are the perfect fit. Washable and un-slippery, these guys are the ISRO (Indian Space Agency) of entrance mats. You may ask, why not NASA? Honestly, NASA is too expensive, and ISRO works without hype but consistently, something First Mats excels at. You can choose from their coconut matting for a modern look or their best-selling Plush Choice entrance mat, given your taste and expectations. Lastly, you might have seen that having a rug or unmeasured mats can not only look bad but create trouble. For instance, if your floor-to-door height is 10 mm and you have a rug or a mat that is thicker than this, you know how irritable it will be to pull your door (that opens inside). To solve this, First Mats have entry mats of varying thickness, starting from 6 mm to 23 mm, ensuring a soft pull each time you greet your visitors, either with a real or fake smile.
10. Lighting.
How important is the lighting? VERY! While we are working on a separate article about light layering for your home, a common trick to understanding how your room should look is by determining the space and the decorative style alongside the mood you are looking for. If it is something too royal, I prefer you add light scones elegantly and if you are not the royal family of Britain you can keep your pockets alarmed and use the most ordinary table lamp and keep the room lit for strictly visual purposes. I will also advise you to use a dimmer for a ceiling-mounted overhang lamp so that if you are like me, misplacing my keys or checking which shoes to wear, brightening the environment will be helpful.
11. Key Dish.
It is only convenient if I include it now, because no matter what, these little things tend to hide in the most unexpected corners of our home. It is as if I bought a studio apartment and then it became a chateau. Use a nice key dish, probably a ceramic one, and let it add accent to your entryway decor.
12. Plant.
If you have a corner in your entryway that is hard to fill and has sufficient natural light, welcome a ficus there and I am sure you will see the change.
13. Paperweight.
We have to keep our letters securely and without losing and paperweights may come in handy once in a while. You can use a nice crystal or a small rock for that purpose, who cares? We just have to know that we are no Harry Potter and there will be no owls or Hagrid to deliver it to us repeatedly.
Decide Interior Colors Before Entryway Decor.
Before you invest in anything, work on your color palette. I think I should make this a tagline in all of my articles. It is not because I am a paint master, but working on this will help you be in your Christ phase and then you can pick up to dressing yourself as per your liking. Did I lose you there? We are still talking about your entryway and to be wonderful at creating a decor style for this area, you need to answer the following questions.
- What is the amount of natural light that you have in this area?
- Are you planning your interiors to be playful, cozy, or luxurious?
- What is your favorite color?
- Do you own any essentials already and are not planning to replace them?
- Are there going to be plants in your entryway?
Once you answer these questions, I want you to understand that for every type of interior, there are shades that go too well with them. For instance, after you note the interaction of natural light in your area, you can proceed to plan their style. If you have brightly lit interiors, and want them to be cozy, use a shade of brown or warmer colors that incline towards white, something like a beige. If you want them to be playful adding pastels or bright warm colors will do good. Lastly, for luxury, you can choose violet or wine red shade.
Note that these choices should be made only after you have given priority to your favorites, unlike what we all do with our first-ever date.
Now, note the color shades of your essentials. If you have chosen warm white for your walls, have brown cabinets, and a printed rug with spots presence of brown and orange in them, pick one of the rug colors, in this case, orange, and start planning your accents. If you have read my guide about interior color palettes (linked previously), you will have no difficulty doing all this.
We all have a mood board and a dream. Instead of mixing them all up in a bucket of trash, plan them and treat them like a recipe. In the end, make sure you have cilantro to finish it up, similar to how we are going to finish our color palette with either a plant or some nice shiny surfaces. For shiny surfaces, you should be clever and use door fittings and other metallic presence in your entryway.
Decide How Functional You Want Your Entryway Decor to Be.
Before we pick our shopping trolley like a madman or woman at a shopping store, I want you to sit on your cozy couch or have you not listened to us and followed this couch decor guide? DO THAT AS WELL.
Getting back to the point, take a paper and list what your needs or expectations are from an entryway. This can be done by answering the following questions. Let’s take your viva.
- How big is your entryway or does it not exist, but you are planning to design something?
- Do you want to make it functional or not?
- If so, do you want a cabinet to occupy necessities and are there anything other than the essentials?
- Do you plan to arrange a seating here, and let it also act as a waiting area, limiting the entry when not needed?
- Do you want a mirror or an artwork above the cabinet?
- What items do you currently have?
How did you do? Let’s analyze and prepare you for nicer grades. For instance, if you have no entryway and it is a small space where you want to create something useful but functional, you can rely on a hall tree that has seating or get as creative as God is while designing your life. You can get a nice accent-colored stool and arrange it with the shelf and use it only when you need it, giving you the necessary room on the floor. If you already have a cabinet and the hall tree is not the best choice, see if it can be used as storage and then add a mirror as well as artwork alongside flowers, keydish, and other essentials to balance the decor.
That’s how you have an idea of what essentials you need but wait, there’s more to the story, we have to plan other items as well and for that let’s properly talk about entryway decor.
Entryway Layout and Planning.
By now you might have a nice idea of what essentials you need for your entryway decor and I believe you have a sheet of paper where you have written down your requirements, as well as the essentials I have listed. This section helps you further, like a blanket in the cold, covering all the aspects of the entryway layout.
1. Determine Your Space and Needs.
Unlike what you do in your relationships, we are going to take a preface of your space and why you are looking to craft an entryway in the first place. To do this, I am going to use the exact method I used before to get you your precise answers, what do I say, I am great at getting answers anyway.
- Is there a dedicated hallway or space near the entrance door that can serve as an entryway?
- If yes, how big is it?
- Do you entertain a group of friends on an occasional or regular basis?
- What are the things that you plan to have in your entryway (answered before, but list them again here, and carefully reduce if needed)?
Let’s say you have an apartment, with absolutely no space for an entryway, and the moment someone enters, they see your living space. What could be done in that case, because, to be honest, a classic grandma knows how to make things better, yet stylish. In this case, I recommend shelves behind your door. Use this space, like people use us for our perfect soul. Following the answers, plan your entryway decor essentials. For instance, you might need coat hangers, so one of the columns should have those bold hooks. Further, the bottom-most row should be divided into two columns, one of which will carry jute baskets for helmets and soft furnishing and the other one is for your shoewear. Moving on the column next to your coat hanging section should be decorated nicely with candle stands, a mirror, and a key dish to let you not be an idiot like me, searching for the keys at the last moment.
Let’s say, you have quite a large living area but the entrance still opens into it. The best solution here is to zone out, which is probably the best solution in everyone’s life, but talking about the living room, leave some space in front of the entry door and create separation through either a rug or a console table behind the couch (if the design allows). Now add a cabinet, just opposite or adjacent to the wall of your entry door, and do not overdo it but use the essential in a really subtle way. The mirror or artwork, the flowers, the key dish, the paperweight, jute baskets, and coat hangers or hooks should always exist.
Lastly, do you have a dedicated entryway? I think you will do great if you just stick to the rules I have shared so far and the ones I will share in the following sections.
2. Planning the Layout.
You know your space and needs, and it should be easy now to work on your entryway decor and rightly align your entryway essentials.
- Start with the focal point and the positioning of your cabinet. It can either be on the adjacent wall or opposite the entrance door. The key is balance and to verify that the arrangement is right, there is no general rule, you should treat the sides like a see-saw and note if anything seems heavier and should be worked upon. Also, make sure that the wood (for the cabinet) you have used blends in with the flooring and other furniture, it shouldn’t seem as if there is a generation gap between them, because take it from my experience, you can’t possibly completely fix it. A quick tip that also applies to the coffee table decor, an article I wrote just recently, is using glass or soft finished wood for modern style and stone or classic wooden cabinets for an older but more elegant look, something like French Country.
- Once you have your cabinet aligned, start working on its surface and surroundings. To flaunt your taste, start with a vase of a particular style and add your favorite flowers in an appropriate style. For instance, my favorite vases are the Spanish ones, recently I have been crushing hard on this country, what can I do, it’s really magical there, other than the heat. You should know that we have a guide about flower arrangement that will be useful for you, believe me, no picture can replicate the real professional flower arrangement it has summarized. Once you have those beautiful creatures, you are already among the 1% and to keep this job of magnificence up, I will tell you to fuel up your car and go to the nearest flea market and get a beautiful and distinguished, just like you, key dish and a crystal paperweight. Add a mirror (which I really find more functional than an artwork) and then make sure to balance everything nicely. Mahima wrote a guide about blank wall decor that will take you through balance and help you do better at it. Just know that balance doesn’t mean mirroring the weight of one side on another. We want to clutter it with personal taste, but keep it light, so that no area is incomplete or blank.
- You have your cabinet and now you need to take a moment, rewind to the essentials list, pick the coat hangers and ottoman, and ensure you have rightly arranged them for a comfortable entryway station. To these, we will add a rug that is of the right width and is in sync with the color palette. Make sure to distance the coat hangers as per visual balance and find a position that doesn’t create visual clutter (different from personalized choices and looks dirty and really heavy) but room.
- We have our area on one side of the entryway, but a successful decor is incomplete if we leave the other aspects such as curtains, door locks and latches, and a nice tree as well as little personalized accessories. As I said before, you don’t need to give inside of your life but characterize your welcome space as a space that is yours and is the beginning of your home. So when you arrange these, you don’t need to actually have them opposite to the cabinet, instead find a corner that is left out on the opposite side, and add curtains alongside the plant. In case, you don’t have a window, this is really the area where your coat hangers or an end table with personalized decor must be, but make sure they are not on the side where the door opens, but instead where it faces its back at. This can be done by changing the position of the cabinet. If you already have a position for hangers, you can play with an artwork too, but don’t let it seem as if it is too interrupting or attention seeking. I don’t want you to be those angry and pretentious people on Reddit. Lastly, it is okay to leave some spaces empty and the rest of the decor will do it for you.
Takeaways.
Summarizing what we have learned so far, you should start by making a list of essentials and then following the questions I have mentioned, pick the ones that are suitable for your space and demands. Don’t make a fool of yourself, unlike what my date did when she said “I want to hire a businessman,” and understand that online marketing is a gamble, and as my friend’s psychiatrist said, that’s a little too risky for your blood. After you have a nice list, recheck it according to the visual design that you can think of and try to arrange it in your mind. I am sure you will do great, just follow every rule carefully.
See you next time with another informative decor article and if you have any problem with your entryway decor, you know our long distance is still working and you can always reach me through the comments or my email (that you can find on our contact page).
Resource.
Featured Image: Photo by SHM Architects, via Town and Country Living
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