Your entryway is an essential dual-purpose space. On one hand, your entryway should look beautiful and welcoming the moment you walk through the door. On the other hand, you also need somewhere quick, clean, and convenient to take off your outerwear and leave your bag and keys. How do you use your entryway for storage without creating clutter? How do you decorate your entryway without making it inconvenient? That’s exactly what we’re diving into today.
The entryway is one of the most important spaces in your home. Decoratively, it’s the first thing anyone sees coming into your house. Functionally, it’s where bags get dropped, muddy shoes are kicked off, and –in cold weather– coats and hats are hung. The challenge is how to keep your entryway both organized and stylish when it sees so much daily traffic. Let’s talk storage
Overhead Cubbies for Hats
Overhead storage is one of the best possible tactics for a tidy entryway because it takes your storage up out of the active space that people use when they enter. Upper cubbies are the perfect place to put your hat because hats are lightweight and you’re already reaching up to take them off. So if your family makes a habit of wearing hats outside of the house, upper cubbies are a wonderful place to put them.
Upper cubbies can also be used for containers of rarely used outerwear like mittens and muffs or decoration pieces to subtly add style to your entryway.
Seating Bench with an Under-Rack for Shoes
Of course, you also need a place to put muddy shoes and rain boots the moment you come in the door. Shoe stores figured this one out a long time ago: When you take off your shoes, it’s nice to have a place to sit. So the perfect entryway shoe storage is to provide an elegant padded bench with a shelf underneath for the shoes. If your family has many outer shoes, create a double-rack. If you want to hide the shoes, find attractive mud-resistant opaque containers and label them for each pair of shoes.
Tall Cubbies for Tidy Coats and Bags
Another problem with entryway convenience versus tidiness are the hooks for hanging coats and bags. So often, the coats fluff out and overlap each other, turning your entryway into an untidy utilitarian place instead of a lovely welcoming space when you enter the home. The solution? Just a little more cubby-work.
By creating tall vertical cubbies each containing two hooks, you can assign each family member a cubby for their coat and bag. The cubbies keep the coats contained and create aesthetically pleasing vertical lines in your entryway design.
Hooks Over a Hanging Basket for Keys
Want a tidy place to hang your keys that won’t be lost underneath coats and bags? Mount a cute long-shallow basket on the wall with a row of hooks above it. This ensures that you have an attractive designated place to hang your keys and anything dropped falls right into the basket. The basket can also hold all those other convenient little near-the-door things like pocket change, USB sticks, and anything else that winds up in your pockets.
Cube Storage for Everything
That covers the basics. Of course, one feature that is common in a great many beautiful and functional entryways is cube storage. From wicker cubes to colorful cloth cubes, these practical portable storage baskets make it possible to use your cubbies and present a coordinated appearance for guests who don’t need to know how many fuzzy hats you keep in a single cubby. Cube storage and similar tactics allow your entryway to be coordinately attractive and incredibly functional at the same time.
Super Tidy Tip: Curtains and Pocket Doors
For our bonus tip, we know that many home decorators want their entryway storage to be even more out of sight than the suggestions we’ve had to share. If your cubbies stick out from the wall, as so many do, mounting a curtain over the cubbies is a wonderful way to hide your storage while keeping those hooks accessible for the family. If you have a recessed coat closet built into the wall, a pocket door is a beautifully convenient way to keep your coats and bags out of sight.
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Your entryway can be both attractive and functional, with plenty of storage the moment you walk in the door. Using these tricks and inspirations you have along the way, a perfect entryway is possible for anyone. If you need a renovation or home repair loan to transform your entryway into a cozy storage space, join the community to get and share ideas with moms everywhere!
