Ideas for Chic Entryways

The entryway is the first area of the home your guests see, yet many homeowners put little effort into adorning such spaces. To help you up the wow factor when someone first enters your home, take these great modern entryway ideas for making your entryway pop.

Modern Vignettes

Photo: EffortlessChic

One of the best ways to dress up your entrance is with an entryway vignette. The essentials include a sleek accent table, artwork or a mirror hung above it, and carefully chosen pieces of varying heights and textures to grace the table, such as plants, lamps or books. To finish the look, you can place other elements under or beside the table, such as woven baskets for storing odds and ends.

Modern vignettes should be well-curated to effectively introduce the design scheme present in the rest of your home, although seasonal elements can also be brought in to keep the display fresh. Lately, we’ve been seeing a resurgence of mid-century modern accent tables paired with art-deco inspired mirrors in entryway vignettes.

Floating Entryway Console

Photo: Wud Furniture

A floating console or cabinet is a great solution for modern homeowners who prioritize open space in their home and have a less-is-more design preference. Floating consoles are better suited to a more contemporary home, and manage both to be more compact and have a bit more storage than a traditional console. Designed to be very solid in appearance, floating consoles are almost strictly modern in style, with very minimal designs, simple lines, and little or no ornamentation. The cabinets usually have slab style doors with smooth, unembellished faces and no door or drawer pulls, to the point that it can be a bit difficult to tell at a glance that the doors are there at all.

A floating piece allows you to incorporate a modern vignette without robbing you of floor space in the entryway. Floating consoles are solid rectangular shapes and no legs, but like conventional consoles are very thin; so they can be mounted to a wall with sturdy hidden brackets, without taking up too much space.

Modern Coat Racks

Photo: UnCrate

Both guests and members of the family will need a space where they can hang their coats, backpacks, drop their bags and even place their umbrellas. When it comes to designing that perfect foyer or hallway, especially where space is an issue, it requires careful thoughts and time if you wish to make the most of the space.  The use of coat racks are known to save considerable space in foyers, hallways and mudrooms.

Coat racks are known more for their practicality than their aesthetics, but today’s coat racks pack more of a design punch than ever before. Rather than settling for a lackluster coat rack that adds nothing to your home’s design scheme, consider modern coat racks featuring bold colors or distinctive designs.

Modern Entryway Bench

Photo: Gus Modern

Bringing both beauty and functionality to the space just inside the front door, benches serve many purposes–a comfortable place to sit and gather one’s thoughts on the way out the door, a convenient place to drop packages after a day of shopping or perhaps simply a focal point for the design of a space used day in and day out. From formal upholstered wood seats to casual contemporary wrought iron benches, these little pieces of furniture have found their enduring place in the entryway of today’s homes, large and small.

For smaller entryways, we recommend smooth wood benches with stainless steel accents or an artisan-made, rough-hewn wood slab set on stainless steel legs.  As an alternative, you might consider a clear acrylic entryway bench for a more minimalist approach that maximizes an open-space feel.