Your Foyer, The Welcome Mat to Your Home

Your Foyer, or entryway, may well be an underrated room in your home but shouldn’t be. Foyers are your welcome mat, inviting your guests in and promising cheerfulness and comfort. As Martha Stewart has said, “it is your home’s first chance to make a good first impression — but it’s also one of the hardest-working rooms in the house.” Decorating this space requires mindfulness and attention to detail but choosing the elements that best reflect you and your sense of style in way that is welcoming can be tough. Let DzineSteps help you find inspiration for reimagining this space.

We did a little research and found some helpful ideas for making your foyer remarkable. There are essentially three elements to pay attention to:

Lighting
Focal Point
Flooring

Lighting

Simple foyer. Photo courtesy of cretteanewcountry-taiwan.blogspot.com.

The lighting in your foyer can create space and openness. In darker areas, you may want to keep it light and bright with simple or elaborate clear glass fixtures. If you already have a lot of light or want to change the feel of the space, try a colored, hand blown glass accent.

Adding lighting fixtures isn’t the only way to brighten and lighten a space. Try some color. HGTV suggests using warm and inviting colors in vertical patterns to brighten your foyer and to give the illusion of height. A larger space is much more welcoming than a closed in, dark one. Pastels and yellow hues are inviting and can be used in alternating, vertical lines to get that open, bright, and cheerful feeling.

Use DzineSteps to test color samples on your foyer wall. We’ve provided an example to help you visualize how adding vertical lines can look.

Focal Point

Foyer with simple, yet elegant, design elements. Photo courtesy of homedesignlover.com.

The focal point of your foyer can be a collection of knick knacks, photos, books, and other items to give your guests a preview of your interests. House Beautiful recommends using a small table and adding decorative elements around and on top of it.

When it comes to choosing decorative elements for your home, DzineSteps suggests making a mood board. You can utilize the mood board to identify a color scheme and decor items you want to display before you make any purchases. We’ve provided a couple of example mood boards to help you visualize how to make your own.

Don’t know what a mood board is? Read our blog post about mood boards to learn how this tool can be incredibly helpful when visualizing your space redefined!

Flooring

Foyer with patterned rug. Photo courtesy of Pinterest.com.

You can create an invitation into your home simply with a patterned rug. Rugs that have a pattern that moves from one direction to the other, either with color or shapes, work to draw your guests from the door into your home. They can also tie together your color scheme and design elements, adding the final complimentary and unifying detail.

DzineSteps recommends adding the rug or carpet pattern to your mood board and then creating a Dzine to see how it can transform your foyer. See our example Dzines for inspiration.

Examples

Mood boards are great tools for visualizing all the design elements you wish to add to a room or living space. We’ve created a couple of example mood boards and accompanying Dzines to show how you could reimagine your foyer.

We chose a warm color palette for this foyer mood board to compliment the wood textures already present in the space. The Dzine included changing the flooring texture as well as adding a rug.

For the color scheme, we sampled the decorative pieces and used the monochromatic, blue color scheme for the walls.

Example 2 Foyer Dzine. Original photo courtesy of marksci2013.com.

Using mood boards and DzineSteps to reimagine your foyer will save you time and money. Plus, you’ll be able to sample colors and flooring options until you find the textures, colors, and styles that fit your unique taste. Get creative with your living space.

Happy Dzining! – from Your DzineSteps Team

To learn more about mood boards and how you can create one of your own, visit our blog post Get Dzining with Mood Boards.

Other blogs worth looking at for more inspiration:

HGTV

Tips for brightening an entryway: http://www.hgtv.com/design/rooms/other-rooms/t/tips-for-brightening-an-entryway

Stylish Entryways: http://www.hgtv.com/design/rooms/other-rooms/stylish-entryways-pictures

House Beautiful

Style a house in 8 easy steps: http://www.housebeautiful.com/home-remodeling/renovation/how-to/g476/foyer-decorating-ideas-1108/

Fabulous Designer Foyers: http://www.housebeautiful.com/room-decorating/entryway-ideas/g650/fabulous-designer-foyers/?slide=1

Houzz

Foyer Home Design Photos: http://www.houzz.com/foyer

Midwest Living