Decor Portfolio

{mosimage}However grand or model in size, the entry, or foyer, plays a significant role in establishing a first impression of you and your home.  Unlike the entry, the other passageways within the home are often overlooked in a decorating plan.

When the entry visually opens to the living room or another major living space, as often happens, it can set the stage for your decorating scheme.  All too often, though, the typical entry is small, boxy, low on natural light, and none too welcoming.  You can help the area make a good impression, however, with a few decorating tricks. 
Small entries take well to understated solutions.  Mirrors can make the space look double its size, especially when they bounce natural light into all corners. Light colors, textures surfaces, subtle patterns, and flooring that flows into neighboring rooms further increase the feeling of spaciousness.  You can furnish the entry with a grouping of small-scale furnishings to make overall area appear larger – an occasional table just big enough to hold the mail, the keys, and a petite vase of flowers, plus a small chair or bench.  Or you can give the small space a greater presence with one or two larger pieces – an inviting with chair, a handsome grandfather clock, or an antique cupboard.
If the foyer in your home is so amply size that it seems impersonal, you can alter its nature by giving it another function.  Ushering visitors into a reception area that looks and fells like a warm den or sitting room can make them feel right at home, and you can use the space for spillover dining and seating when entering.
The back hall, interior hallways, stairwells, and landings are sometimes regarded only as necessary connectors between living spaces – and are typically narrow and poorly lit. Hallways invariably lack space to put things down, much less store them away.
Dim halls and stairwells can be illuminated with a track lighting system that pools light on the floor to create a safer passage and washes the walls with light to visually expand the narrow dimensions.  You might line the newly lit walls with old family photographs or fine-art prints for a gallery effect that’s sure to elevate the space to the status of a room.  Landings and the ells of halls can serve as mini libraries with the addition of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves pushed against one wall. (You can put a wide hall to work as a library, too, balancing the visual weight of books on one wall with strong color, patterned wall coverings, or a tapestry on the other wall.)
{mosimage}Color and textures can do a lot to widen a narrow hall – or shorten a long one. Remembering that dark and intense colors advance, bringing surfaces visually closer, and that lighter more subdued hues recede, for the opposite effect, can be a valuable aid in planning the scheme for your halls.  The back hall can become an entryway in its own right with a little attention – a practical area with hooks to hang jackets, hinge tops benches to store boots or gardening gear, attractive lockers to stash hockey sticks, softball bats, and skateboards.
Choose an appropriate flooring material for these areas of your home, back halls are a good spot for heavy-duty, easy clean resilient that stand up to dirt and pets.  Interior halls do well with low-pile, tight-weave, commercial-style carpet that’s soft underfoot but extremely durable.