Inspiration: Entryways, Foyers, Landing strips. Style and Storage?

Whatever you want to call it, it has to do a lot. Store things. Look good. Help you get in and out of the house without fuss. Welcome people to your home and introduce them to your style. Set the tone of your home.

Before we get to the nitty gritty, let's have some eye candy, shall we?

source unknown

I love, love, love this. The grey. The yellow. Black and silver. The closed storage. I've always loved salon style grouping of pictures, too.

Here is an entry way which is simplicity itself:

source: The Lettered Cottage

This is utterly elegant:

source: Savvy Southern Style

As is this:

source: unknown

Looking at these anew, it strikes me that the top image could exist in the bedroom or the living room as well as the front hallway. The second could be most at home in the living room, somewhere. (I love half moon tables.)

What I need is something practical as well as gorgeous. This, however, leans entirely too far to the "practical" side.

source: Martha Stewart

To show you the space I have to work with, I drew a quick sketch of my front hallway.


The front door is at the bottom of the sketch. The hallway is 3 feet 6 inches wide. (96 centimeters). Any "hall table" or console cannot be more than 12" wide (30 cm) to allow passage.

The current cabinet is being used for:

• storing shopping and library totes.
• storing books to be returned to the library
• storing odds and ends behind the cabinet doors. We never use any of this stuff on a day to day basis, so I could probably purge whatever is in there and store what we may still need elsewhere.

Needs:

• The above mentioned storage: places for library books and totes.
• A place to put my daughter's back pack when she gets home from school.
• A place for guest boots. Preferably on a removable tray--we have to put them up and out of the way of the dog. (He shows his affection for you by bringing you an object of yours and inviting you to play tug of war with him. And what better than your freshly discarded boots and shoes?) Something like this:

source: Martha Stewart

This is a thought (without the bulletin board, please):

source: as above, Martha Stewart

Here it is interpreted smaller and higher by A Vintage Vine.

source: A Vintage Vine

She used the Ekby Valter shelf brackets from Ikea which was smart as well as practical. (I just happen to have a few on hand.)

Definitely a thought.

Here's how the area in question looks at the moment.

Taken at the foot of the stairs looking back towards the front door.

Yes. A soothing gray, Edgecomb Gray, from Benjamin Moore (HC 173). I actually think I should have gone just a bit darker, but it's done. I've just the trim and the door yet to do. Oh, and the light fixture. And, of course, the cabinet/storage/hook thingy to figure out.

I'll keep you posted.