For those of us living in houses with a front door that opens onto the street, the options for finishes in an entry hall need to be practical and durable. If you live in an apartment or a condominium, the worry about wet outdoor shoes and wear and tear is alleviated, and the entry hall can be dressed in materials intended to set the scene and provide an inviting welcome at the front door.
An antique French bombe chest with intricate ormolu mounts sets the tone for sophisticated elegance in the foyer. With a wide marble top and two deep drawers, a formal piece like this is both a beautiful and practical choice for your front hall. It offers plenty of surface area to set down keys or the mail, and some additional storage to keep necessities tucked away out of sight.
When indulging in fine furniture and gilded decorative objects, you may want to pull back the reins to keep your hall from going over-the-top in the decadence department. A delicately coloured cream and pale yellow, wide-striped wallpaper is a soothing foil to the intricacy and opulence of the chest and mirror, providing a linear backdrop to add a more casual note to the formal elements it frames.
A centre hall table makes a stately impression if you’ve got a large enough entry to accommodate it. Instead of regarding a piece of furniture in the middle of the room as a blockade to traffic flow, think of the circular profile as being similar to a roundabout on the road. Since there are no hard edges to bump into, people will just move around the table while it stands proudly in the room. Dress it with flowers and you’ll feel happy to be home every time you open the door.
Not every home is designed with an ample front-hall closet, but that needn’t discourage you from finding a workable solution to consume coats and hats at the front door. As an alternative to constructing a simple hall closet out of frame and drywall, consider how you could allocate the funds toward a functional focal point. This library cabinet has ample space inside, and forward-facing hanging rods ensure coats don’t get dropped in a pile on the floor.