Giving My Small Entryway a Nature Inspired Aesthetic

A small foyer can often be an overlooked part of the house. After all, it’s not a place you spend a lot of time in. But this little area – well in my home it’s little – is where it all begins. A comfortable and well thought out entryway helps to set the mood you want for your home. My entry, which includes the stairway, was plain, builder grade, and neglected; not the mood I’m trying to set here.

We put off doing anything about it for a long time for 2 reasons. First, we have plans to open the wall up down the road for the study. Why would I want to make the wall look nice when all I really want to do is take a big chunk out of it?

Secondly, we didn’t want to deal with trying to remove the dated chandelier light fixture in the stairway that was difficult to get to. We have lived in our home for over 9 years. Nine plus years of thinking about how I want to get rid of that light at least once a week, some weeks a few more than once. In fact, I couldn’t find a picture of it because I intentionally made sure that the light fixture was not in any pictures. This is the only image I could find with it. But you can see it a bit through the plants.

After prioritizing rooms that needed some work in our house, we decided that opening up the wall and creating a study would have to come after a few other projects were completed. Since that’s the case, I think it’s time to give the entry a little jeuje.

To begin any home improvement project I like to write out a list of the problems in the space I’m working on. For the entryway, I had a few “problems” I wanted to work out. Nothing major, no demo or major repairs. Really this little spruce up is all about aesthetics. The problems were mostly cosmetic, although I am solving some functional problems here as well. Okay, here’s the list:

ugly lighting
unused doorbell box in wall
current entry light has exposed bulb that causes glare
large empty wall
would like to up the natural light
ledge on half wall and handrails feel outdated
dog door gets in the way
get rid of clutter

As you can see from the list, most of the problems relate to making things feel cohesive with the rest of the home as well as more intentional. As it stands, the entryway doesn’t flow into the rest of the living area. It just kinda sits there looking lost. Time to lay out the solutions to these little problems. As you will notice, everything has a pretty simple solution.

remove chandelier completely so that we never need to deal with it again as it’s difficult to reach because of the steps and vaulted ceiling
make sure that there is no power going to the wires to the old doorbell and then patch it
new entry light fixture with shade that covers the bulbs (in the past I replaced the light in the picture above with another light fixture that had an exposed bulb as well- lesson learned)
add some life to the big blank wall
noticing that the light from the door lands on the wall to the left of the front door part of the day, put a mirror to up the light reflected back into the space and remove the clutter – we have a coat closet after all
cut down ledge and find a new home for the plants
replace handrails
remove dog door and train the dogs not to go downstairs unless they’re going with us
Add some motion detected lights to the stairs

Okay, that’s the list. Nice little bite sized projects that when added together will produce a finished entryway. Let’s get started!

First on the list is the chandelier. This chandelier was a builder grade fixture that was glaring when in use. It did provide plenty of light for the stairs but do we really need that much light there when the entry light fixture is only 6 feet away? I think not. Now, removing this light altogether leaves us with the issue of what to do with the ceiling. The ceilings throughout our home have a texture that we can’t replicate. Smoothing out the ceilings in the vaulted rooms in our home is just too daunting of a task for me to think about right now so I’m not going to consider that at this point. What we will do is simply tape off the wires, tuck them in the electrical fixture box, and cover it with a plate made for such things. Maybe down the road we’ll address the ceilings but not today.

Next, the doorbell. A while back, we’re talking years now, we got a camera doorbell and have not used the old doorbell since. I’m pretty happy to finally see that weird rectangle up on my wall gone. We removed the box and searched for the transistor. After searching and researching where it could be and still not being able to locate it we decided to check and see if the wire was live. Turns out they were not.

To patch the hole I decided to go with a California patch. I figure the hole was small enough and the location is so out of the way that this method of repairing it should be just fine.

The next step now that the patching and the light fixture are removed is to deal with the ledge and handrails. We’ll remove the old handrails and put the new up after the painting is finished, of course.

As for the ledge, we wanted to trim it down and leave it with nice crisp, clean lines. We removed it, trimmed it, and then nailed it back into place. Now we have the feel we’re going for without spending any money to replace it. (The baseboards will be replaced when we get to laying new floors down the road.)

Before I get too far I want to share my design board. I’ve learned over the years that there’s a time to play and a time to plan. When designing a space, planning is a must.

Here’s the design board I made for my entryway. I also included a key so that I knew where I was going to source everything.

The color that I chose for the walls is actually the color of the rest of my living area. It’s called Warm Milk from Valspar. It’s a soft milky white that keeps things feeling open but has a touch of warmth to it. I ended up getting it color matched at Sherwin Williams and the actual paint on the walls is from Sherwin Williams.

A couple of coats of paint and things were already coming together. The door I painted black and I love the contrast. I painted all of our interior doors black a couple of years ago and still absolutely love it. It just adds depth to my home. For the front door I painted it the same black, Sherwin Williams’ Emerald Urethane line in their basic black with a semi-gloss finish. With the front door I also painted the door trim black since I wanted to enlarge the feel of it as it’s the front door, on a good size wall, and in an area with vaulted ceilings. With the interior doors I left the door trim to match the walls. I am completely happy with both

Now for the big blank wall. I selected a large wall-to-wall wallpaper mural with muted tones and a painterly feel. I love how it brings the whole space to life without being too in your face. There are times of day when the treetops feel like shadows of the trees outside in our backyard. In fact, the view of the trees out back was the inspiration for the choices in this project. Nature inspired is my design style. I want to add that calm comforting feel of being in the forest whenever I can.

This was my first time wallpapering. I have tradesmen do the installing for my interior design clients. They make it look so easy and know all the tricks. I, however, don’t have enough experience with it to say that I’ve acquired this skill. I will say that all in all it turned out pretty good. The corners could’ve been better and I learned a lot. The overall effect is spot on regardless of any little imperfections.

Once the wall was done it was time to add in the finishing elements and bits of the design.

A simple, clean, light fixture with a fabric shade and light diffuser panel was installed. A washable but super soft entry rug with browns and blacks added even more coziness and hides dirt from the dog’s paws. The mirror was hung in a spot that reflected some natural light into this often dark corner of my home. A small table for some greenery as well as holding the dog leash was put in the corner. And a tiny little fox watches over the entry from the middle door hinge.

There it is, the entry now feels put together and carries the same feel as the rest of the living room. To finish this off I’ll be working on adding some art as you go down the stairway in the entry so be on the lookout for that. If you’d like to know when I share a new project or article don’t forget to sign up for my email list!

Update: After having the little table in the corner for a few weeks, I decided that I wanted to change that. The dog leashes underneath were annoying to get to for my husband and the small eucalyptus vase was just missing the mark. Instead I opted for a nature-inspired tree sculpture- I don’t know if it completely fits the definition of sculpture but I love it. If you’d like to see more on that creation, I’ll be sharing that soon! Really, you just need to sign up for my email list. 😊