One of the elements I adore about our home is the foyer. I didn’t realize it until we had one, but it’s just so nice to have a space wherein you shed and store all the outerwear and shoes. In a perfect world, I’d furnish the foyer with a small desk or console table (to handle all incoming and outgoing mail), a small bench (for putting shoes on and taking shoes off), and a shoe rack. Oh, and an indoor/outdoor rug that’s machine washable would be nice to keep dirt from tracking in.
But there’s three doorways in the foyer: one for the entrance, one for the hall closet, and one that leads to a small den (which we’ve repurposed into a storage room), plus the archway that that leads to the living room. Three sets of doors in this small space makes furniture placement… interesting.
So it’s always been a bit of a hodgepodge: all sorts of random furniture has made its way there. Right now, we’ve got two plant stands in lieu of a console table, one rolling cart that doesn’t hold my shoes very well but does hold a basket on top for all our outdoor accessories (scarves, gloves, hats, etc), and a small shoe rack for Chris’ shoes. No bench. No effective mail system. But what is driving me nuts the most right now is dealing with my shoes and boots. It’s freakin’ cold here in Chicago and I love knee-high boots, but storing these things are a complete PITA. In a perfect world I’d have something like this:
The Sarah Storage Tower from Ballard Designs (but I think I’d want this in white/cream). At this point, however, this piece is aspirational, not attainable. So this is what I’ve got instead:
It doesn’t handle my boots, but it handles plenty of shoes. Unfortunately, Chris doesn’t think it’s sturdy enough to serve as a bench if it’s on its side (and he’s probably right), but it will tidy up my shoes. Now all I need is to figure out how to work in a bench or a chair and perhaps a boot tray…
ginia.org 