Entry ways, or foyers can be hard to decorate. Some are too small to hold much in terms of furniture and some are too large and seem to be a separate room. In the past, I had lived with entry ways that were both too small and too big, so I wanted to make sure that when we designed our new home, we sized the foyer just right.
The entry way is the only space in our home that is two stories so we wanted to emphasize the dramatic height of the room. We did this by 
covering the walls in board and batten three-quarters of the way up the wall. Board and batten is the use of thin stripes of wood spaced evenly apart in a vertical manner to create a pattern on the wall. Board and batten is right up there with ship lap in my book. I would have put it on every wall in the house if the budget allowed.
In our foyer, we made sure we had space to welcome guests into our home, display a few of our favorite things and include some chairs so that you can sit down to take off your shoes. I fell in love with the acrylic “ghost” chairs and thought they would be perfect for this space. My girls think that they are very cool (my husband thinks they are pretty strange) and like to pretend that they are sitting in mid-air when they sit on them. I bought mine from Dot and Bo, (http://www.dotandbo.com) but they are pretty easy to find at many online retailers and are pretty inexpensive.
The concrete horse started out a creamy white, then I painted him bronze during my bronze phase and then returned him to his true color for this entry way.
I used three tables in our foyer that all came from our prior homes. But, like most everything else in our prior homes, they were dark wood. I took out my well used can of Sherwin Williams Pure White latex flat paint (http://www.sherwin-williams.com) and gave two of them a few coats of white paint and before sanding the edges to give them a more worn appearance.
The third table, in the photo below, I white washed to give it an aged appearance. See my post of how to white wash furniture. (http://wreathonthedoor.com/white-washing-furniture-made-easy/) The mirror above the entry table also received a makeover. It started out life as a black metal framed mirror. I painted the frame using more white latex paint and then sanded off areas of the paint to age it. Its height (over four feet) makes it perfect for the entry table in this two-story foyer.
For accessories in the foyer, I used some of my favorite greenery balls and placed them in formerly black urns that I had refreshed with more white and gray paint. I finished off the space with several groupings of blue and white porcelain vases. I was trying to achieve a welcoming, light and airy entry way, while using furniture and accessories we already had. With a little bit of paint, and few new acrylic pieces, I think the space turned out pretty well. Have you recently redone your entry way? I’d love to hear about it! 
