When decorating a room, even one as tiny as a foyer, you need to make it your own. In nearly every home there is a standard foyer look. Everyone has a small table, a mirror over it, a bit of green and a lamp. It’s almost a formula.
This is a place where a bit of whimsy can be so effective. When you enter someone’s home, it should speak volumes about the people living there. So tear up the formula and create something that has your stamp all over it. Something that reflects your personality.
For the traveler, and when at home, a traveler wanna be, here is a very interesting foyer. Take a vintage leather suitcase from the 40’s or 50’s and add some assorted attractive and meaningful boxes and baggage. Stack them attractively until they are the height of a table.
Choose a picture suitable to the size of the wall to be placed over it. Pick out a picture of a location you have been to or one you would love to see. A travel poster would do if it was framed.
Add interesting items. A small tea lamp, exotic figurines, a lunch basket one might have taken with them on a train trip. Place your items on the different levels of the stack. Leave room on the flat surface for keys to be tossed and perhaps today’s mail. But keep that surface small. The larger the surface the more likely you will be to clutter it up.
Your exotic figurines really add that bit of whimsy. In my photo, the three monkeys represent advice to the traveler: “Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil, See no Evil”. The jackets and hats of the little monkeys brighten the area with color and speak of foreign locations where monkeys might live naturally.
Finally add a piece of yourself. I’ve added a hat that is easy to pick up and return to the foyer when you leave your home for a walk or a short trip to the market. A scarf, a necklace, a fun shopping bag would work as well. It makes the whole area personally yours.
Are you a musical family? Build around a vintage set of different sized stacked drums. Do you camp? Build around several sizes of stacked stumps. Take what ever your main interest is and put your personal stamp on it for all to see when they enter.
Source: Personal Experience