How To: Create A Faux Hallway In An Open Plan Apartment Or House
Although we’d all love to have a grand entrance to our homes, with a sweeping staircase and Victoria tiles leading up the path, many of us have a front door that opens straight into an open plan apartment or house.
It’s hardly a warm welcome home with nowhere to store your shoes and stepping straight into your front room as you’re watching TV can feel a little intrusive, especially if you live with other people.
Which is why today we wanted to share five ways you can create a faux foyer with clever styling and furniture placement.
CREATE A DIVIDE
By using a bookcase, shelving unit, console table or similar to create a divide between the front door and the open plan space, you’re building a defined zone within a room. Incorporating a bookcase as a partition, for example, you’re killing two birds with one stone by maximising storage and creating a place to store mail, keys, hats etc – a must in a less than palatial home.
CLEVER SHELVING
Boost your floor space in a smaller apartment by investing in clever shelving – something that incorporates a mirror, somewhere to mail and hand keys, for example. You could even hang baskets from the wall with hooks to store accessories, umbrellas etc, and look for pieces that work with your current scheme – for example a black industrial wall mounted shelving unit would look great in an open plan space with exposed brick walls and a mix of vintage furniture, where as rattan woven baskets as mentioned above, would be perfect in a more bohemian interior.
PLANTS
Create a zone within your open plan space by adding floor plants or hanging plants from the ceiling. This pop of green adds warmth to new build white walls, and having an area dedicated entirely to your houseplants gives the faux entrance a sense of purpose. Group them together in varying heights by the door to create a distinct focal point.
USE COLOUR
Could you paint the section of the room where you enter from the front door a different colour to the rest of the space? Perhaps a darker shade just in the corner of the room, which works especially well when use a bookshelf to separate the spaces? Or, however, if the room is too small to paint, how about using a large framed print on the wall to bring your eyes to that area. Using artwork in an open plan area is a great way of defining specific zones.
SOMEWHERE TO SIT
By adding a bench or small seat to the space to sit down and put your shoes on, you’re, again, giving the space a sense of purpose. Even if you don’t have a tonne of room to be working with, a small stool next to a shoe rack and some plants can really help to define an entrance space. Just look at how effective the interior above by A Pair & A Spare looks.
Have you struggled to define an entrance area in your house? Which interior design tricks did you use to overcome it?
With love
Natalie Xx
