Oddly enough, entranceways and foyers are often overlooked as rooms in the home.
However, much like the entrance to a corporate office, residential entranceways set the tone for the experience of the visitor. There’s a reason why the world’s great casinos, palaces and places of worship have magnificent entranceways.
The Entranceway is the visitor’s first impression of your home or workplace. When designing entranceways, it’s vital to consider this your only chance at a great first impression.
Creating a great entrance
Just because you don’t have the space to create a magnificent columned entrance hall, does not mean that the space you have can’t be beautiful. It’s all a matter of creating something formal yet inviting. As with bathrooms, people often try to clutter this space with functional items like benches and tables. However, it’s important for the space to be easy to move through and inviting to a new arrival.
Maximizing a focal point
Every good entranceway or foyer has a central point of focus within the room. It may be something as simple a a painting on the wall or something more ornate like a fountain or decorative sculpture.
What is critical is to establish balance within the foyer. If the focal point is to attract maximum attention, other areas of the space should be minimized. This often means reducing the number of pieces of furniture in the foyer but can also mean using contrast in colour.
This is one area of your home where it’s perfectly natural to draw the eye of the visitor with a highlight of colour.
Mixing form and function
Remember when designing your foyer that it will be a high traffic area. This is especially critical when deciding on the materials used to construct the flooring. While carpets are fantastic for living areas, they’re often difficult to keep clean in an entranceway.
Limestone however, is the opposite, being preferred for outdoor spaces that can grow dirty quickly. Some of the most common flooring materials used for entranceways include granite, marble and some especially-firm varieties of limestone that have a low porosity.
Constructing your entranceway
Renovating your entranceway requires some planning that is not as crucial when renovating a a bathroom or kitchen space.
For example, door jams and door themselves often need to be removed. This makes the task of renovating an entranceway prone to weather conditions outside the home. Have a plan in place which establishes a way to deal with this. Often, this will mean having your renovation completed during the summer.
For more information about our Vancouver Foyer Renovations and other home renovation spaces, please feel free to contact us or request a quote.
