I don't know about you, but I have struggled to find a functioning layout for our house's entryway since we moved in years ago. Ideally, I thought a bench was perfect. A cozy spot for the kids + husband to plop down on after coming home from a long day at work & school & soccer practice and take off their shoes and unload their bags.
Sounds dreamy, right? Instead, it became a drop zone. Shopping bags, ballet shoes, mail, basically anything that came in the door with us - everything just landed there and stayed there. I added a great woven basket for shoes and styled up the bench with pillows and hung some artwork. I tried really hard to make it work. But, it never did. And the biggest challenge was having our dining room open up directly to the entryway. It needed to look stylish, blend with our style, and still work for us.
Our home wasn't build with a mudroom and the layout doesn't really lend a good space to add one on either. Our garage is a huge work-in progress and while I'd love to make some corner of it a landing zone, I'm not so sure that's ideal either. So, a few months ago, I decided to figure it out once and for all. This is our forever-for-right-now home and things just need to work for us.
I spotted this white cubby-style piece on a recent trip to Ikea. It was marked down and I liked it enough to take a chance with it. Finding baskets to match were a pain though! Instead of having the same dimensions as most other Ikea pieces, the cube spaces were a little smaller. While the Ikea baskets would technically fit, they stuck out too far from the back of the piece which didn't work with the chair railing we have on the walls.
I finally found some seagrass baskets that were a good fit and the design took shape from there. Each of us have a basket for our shoes and there's 2 extra baskets for things like Lia's ballet stuff and seasonal items like sunscreen, hats, etc.
I keep the decor simple so that it's pretty enough that we don't clutter the open space but not so much that I'm just dusting items that we literally never use. There's a basket for keys or small random things we may need on our way out the door.
The rugs really completed things and pulled it all together. They do shed a bit but I vacuum enough on a regular basis (not that anything around here has been kept up on a regular basis lately, ha-ha!) that it's not too bothersome. They hold up well to our everyday traffic but I do notice the floor gets much dirtier when we have guests and we're in and out of the house constantly. Overall, I really like them!
The pattern is bold but too dizzying as a whole against our wood floors.
The floor to wall gallery is one of my favorite things I've done in this house. I LOVE a good gallery wall. Though, I do keep alternating between keeping this one as it is, switching the frames to all white or white/wood and keeping the layout, OR, switching them all to white square frames in rows. The hallway gets dark in the afternoons and I want to keep it as bright and airy as I can!
We painted the interior doors black a few years ago. I'm so glad we took the plunge! It just added this bold layer to the space. We didn't bother painting the trim since we wanted it to match the rest of the trim throughout the house. Since then, I've been dreaming of getting black French doors to replace the sliding glass doors we have leading to the backyard.
This design has worked for us so great the past few months. Ignoring the dead grass on the floor..it's clean, simple, and opens up the space. The kids have gotten used to putting their shoes in their baskets as soon as they come in. We have a second, larger basket for overflow shoes that Manny and I mostly use and we keep it tucked away in the hall closet. A chair or somewhere to sit would still be nice (especially for the husband and his boots!) but for now, this is working!
What are your favorite entryway solutions?
