Our new rug + foyer plans
Well, friends, Christmas has finally wrapped up in the Ayer family! Yes, you read that right. My whole family wasn’t able to gather in December due to work and school schedules, so we declared Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend our celebration. The older I get, the more I understand that it’s not so much about when you celebrate, but the people with whom you celebrate!
The highlight of our weekend, however — beating out opening presents, many rounds of Mexican Train, and chasing my 13-month-old niece — had to be the enormous bonfire we lit in my parents’ backyard. My Dad disassembled the playground he had built 25 years prior and that we had spent thousands of hours playing on, and we sent it off in style with 20+ foot tall flames. It was a sight to see. We even roasted marshmallows in the embers after it had been burning for 12 hours!
Thankfully no neighbors called the fire department. In other news, we are making progress on our foyer! You may remember it from our house tour, when it looked a little empty:
It was sporting our beloved nautical chart, but that was about it. Over time, we hope to add a multicolored vintage rug, replace the light fixture, and add some sort of storage or seating. Many moons ago I came across a particular beauty on esalerugs.com, and fell in love:
I would click over to it multiple times a week for several weeks, until the sad notice popped up that it was being shipped to a (lucky!) client. I continued to look over the options every so often, but never saw something I loved quite as much – until this one appeared!
From my time spent browsing the site, I knew it was the one, and at 50% off, it fit within our budget. I showed John, and miracle of miracles, he immediately agreed! He must have know it was the one, too :) Here’s a peek at it in our house!
It arrived within a few days, and we’ve been super happy with the quality so far! Highly recommended. (And tip: if you’re not buying it at 50% off on this site, you shouldn’t be buying it!)
Now that we have the floor layer in place, I’ve moved on to the next! We’ve been debating whether to add a dresser…
Unknown, Seventh House on the Left, Better Homes & Gardens
a console table…
or a bench:
House Tweaking, Recently, Design*Sponge
John is leading toward a bench, but I like the idea of having a surface. We’d likely combine either with hooks on the wall and a shoe tray. Here’s a bit of inspiration for either scenario!
Mirror, tufted bench, boot tray, console table, flushmount light, dresser
Which would you choose? Do you have one or the other set-up in your house, and do you like it?
I just love the look your going for! I love the idea of a dresser (for extra storage) or console (to not take up a lot of visual space and still allow for some great surface space up top and on the bottom), but can’t argue that a bench has so much charm. Thanks for sharing your finds…as we progress with our house reno I’m always looking for decor inspiration and I saved several of your sources. We seem to have similar taste and budget :) Looking forward to seeing more of your home projects!
I’m usually a bench-in-the-foyer girl but I actually love the idea of a dresser too!
Beautiful new addition! I even like the rug you bought even more than your original inspiration. And I think a bench is incredibly charming, but I definitely lean towards a console table or dresser for practicality’s sake. I use my foyer’s console table for so much, and I think it’s so handy having table/surface space in there.
I like the dresser so that you can hide some of the clutter that inevitably piles up! (Hopefully hide it in an organized way so that it doesn’t take over, but it’s so nice to be able to have a surface to style + room to put things that aren’t so beautiful- but still part of life, like bills/mail/coupons, etc- away and out of sight!
Oh and LOVE (like truly LOVE LOVE LOVE) the rug!!!
We have that tufted bench from Target in our entry and I’m obsessed with it. It’s so cute and perfect to put my purse on when I walk in the door. It’s a great quality for the price too!
Em, do you wear shoes in your house? We have a bench in our foyer mainly because we are a no-shoes household. It was important for us to give guests a place to sit down to take off their shoes (we have a shoe tray and a bin underneath the bench) and get settled. We also keep a little basket on one end of the bench for action items (i.e., the magazine to give to a friend, or the tool we borrowed from a neighbor to return). Depending on the length of the wall, you might be able to have a smaller bench and an end table (the best of seating and storage).
That bonfire is epic! I love the rug you chose. The peaches & light blues go together so well. In our entryway we ended up going with a console. My husband built a bench and shoe rack shelf in the garage, so we can put our shoes away in there. He spiffed it up with a little strip of carpet, so we’re not walking around on the bare garage cement when we go to take our shoes off/put them on. We noticed that even with just the two of us (baby Freja isn’t wearing shoes yet :o) ) we had waaayyy too much shoe clutter in the hallway. Now we each keep just one pair of shoes each in the hallway, the rest in the garage.
Beautiful rug, my dear!
I don’t have a foyer in my house, but I wanted to create one. I purchased this console from Ikea, and it was the PERFECT solution! It keeps messy shoes out of the doorway and there’s plenty of room for a small plant, mail organizer, key cup, etc. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80156120/#/60156121
If that is the entrance you use everyday, I would say the dresser. It supplies much more storage capabilities. For us, we use our garage entrance as our main entrance, so our foyer has only a small console table and is there more for beauty than function. It works well for us.
I really love the print you have over your light fitting. “What good shall I do this day?” – that really resonates with me, and I’d love to have that up in my house as a daily reminder to choose to do good where possible!