We’ve all heard it before. The entryway sets the tone for what one can expect to see in the rest of your home. It should represent the people who live inside and yet feel welcoming to all who enter those doors. Umm…no pressure! That said, our modern entryway was one room we made the quickest decisions on. Probably because it didn’t need structural changes, and we reused much of what we owned.

But there still were several considerations along the way.

Determine the right option for ambient lighting

Our entryway is a great size, maybe, because I’m comparing it to our last one. The ceiling, however, is relatively low. I love the impact a statement light fixture makes in an entryway with a high ceiling. But there’s no way we could have pulled that off in this space.

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Either way, the boob lights had to go. The light hit anyone sitting on the couch in the living room in the most uncomfortable and unflattering way. Also, it made the ceiling look lower than it actually was. For these reasons, I decided to do away with flush mounts. We had our electrician replace them with recessed lighting instead, and I love how it turned out.

Having dimmers on entryway recessed lights are a must. We turn it up when we’re carrying things in from the garage, keep it low when we receive guests at the front door, and it just disappears from view when we don’t need it.

Also, it’s incredible how the same low ceiling now feels like a feature. It intuitively leads you towards the more expansive living area with its open plan and cathedral ceiling.

Engage the senses in your modern entryway

What better way to have someone feel like they’ve entered your domain than by engaging all their senses?

The ambient sound of water trickling down the water feature in the corner creates such a soothing atmosphere. It makes you leave all your worries outside and unwind…sigh! And so, I always have it turned on when we have guests over. Visually, the neutral colors, organic textures, and plants go with that zen-like mood. Add some bergamot, eucalyptus, sandalwood, or cedar candles or incense, and voila!

The entryway, living, dining, and kitchen walls were painted a light greyish blue when we moved in. The paint color itself wasn’t bad at all, just not for this space and certainly not our jam. We’re drawn to warm colors. Even though we’re using neutral paint colors in this home, they had to have warm undertones. After testing many more than the 5 shades of white you see in the pic below, I painted the entryway in Benjamin Moore Simply White.

If you need to sample wall colors, I highly recommend using Samplize. They ship peel-and-stick samples made with real paint from popular brands such as Benjamin Moore, Farrow and Ball, and Sherwin Williams. How convenient is it to order online and have paint samples that can be repositioned and tried on multiple walls?

Keep it functional

We have a separate mudroom (that will eventually become my home office). So a console table and coat closet in the entryway provides enough storage for when we use the front door or have company.

We bought this console table a decade ago for our previous home. It’s not my favorite piece of furniture, and I would prefer one with a lighter-toned wood for this particular space. But it’s in good shape, and the clean lines work well with all of the other more organic elements in the modern entryway. Maybe, I’ll refinish it someday.

I used to have a tray on the console table as a catch-all, but it got too messy for me. So I replaced it with this cement box. I love the texture it brings, it also holds quite a bit, and keeps odds and ends out of sight.

I’ve really struggled in the past with finding a durable and pretty rug for the modern entryway. This one is from Ruggable and can be thrown into the washing machine whenever it gets mucky. And that happens a lot in our household with young kids and a 90-lb dog.

Add some meaningful details

I usually sit on the steps to put on my shoes if I need to. But, I wanted guests to have a more convenient spot to perch. The reed stool certainly fits the bill. More importantly for me, it brings back childhood memories of sitting on modha/mudha stools. They’re found in ancestral homes across India but grew very popular in the seventies and eighties.

The lampshade was a gift from my mom when we bought our first home. It’s made of recycled paper with dried pressed flowers and casts a beautiful warm glow in this modern entryway every evening.

We bought the Buddha wall decor that’s in the corner, a long time ago, and it’s one of Amit’s favorite picks. So I expect it’ll always have a spot in our home.

These may seem like minor details to the onlooker but they make us smile every time we walk past the entryway.

Bring the outdoor into your modern entryway

Since we lean towards a modern organic design style, almost every room in our home has real plants. It was all the more important to do that in the entryway. As you walk in, the greenery continues. Our foyer has partial sun and partial shade. However, several low-light plants do just fine there.

Usually there’s a Dragon Tree (Dracaena Marginata) in the corner. I plan to have couple of planters with Snake Plant (Sansevieria Trifasciata) on the steps leading to the living room. Their height should add interest to that space. They were recently propagated and tiny when I was taking these photos so I brought in a couple of plants from my living room instead. In the summer, I have my ZZ plant on the console instead of the wooden vase with dried eucalyptus branches. Right now, it’s on the buffet in the dining room (to be posted soon).

Fun Fact: we recently adopted a calico kitten, Nala, who’s now 11 weeks old. She has uprooted and killed both my dragon tree and the snake plant that took me 6 months to propagate. I’m going to have to figure out if I should bring the same kind of plants again or try something different. If you have any tips, let me know in the comments section below – I’m all ears.

What’s Next

Ideally, I would have a modern glass-paneled front door to bring in more light. But our front door has grown on me. It brings a vintage charm to offset all the other modern exterior finishes. Who knows, though, I might change my mind down the line.

Down the hallway from our foyer is the laundry room. It’s dingy, dated, and falling apart. The best part about it is that it has a door I can always keep closed – haha! Jokes aside, it’s a decent size and has a door that leads to the backyard. The plan is to convert it into a dedicated mudroom since it’s close to the foyer, garage door, and backyard. We have a spot for a modest but convenient laundry room upstairs where all the bedrooms are. And once the laundry room has been moved upstairs and we have a new mudroom instead, I can reclaim my office.

It’s not just about modifying this modern home’s aesthetics but also about making it functional for our family and the next. And there’s so much potential here for that!

So, here we are at the end of this post and I hope you enjoyed it. What’s the one room that came together quickly for you, and why? Do you have modern entryway design dilemmas that you could use feedback on? Drop us a line – we love hearing from you!