The Foyer : Wallpaper

Wallpaper is a sometimes difficult design element to fit in your home. Many of you live in homes where the walls seamlessly blend into other spaces, leaving you with a question of where to stop the paper. In a foyer, you can usually stop the paper easily, and make a big impact with very little money - thanks to the narrow square footage.

Whether you choose a natural paper like grasscloth, or a very expensive hand painted paper from a paper maker like de Gournay or Gracie Studio, the foyer is the perfect place to make the investment. My two favorite wallpapers for the foyer:

Chinoiserie:

Designer Credit: Miles Redd

Tory Burch's Foyer

Design Credit: Thomas Jayne

Design Credit: Parish Hadley

Found: Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles

And although I know this is not a foyer, it's an example of a way you can get the look of a fully papered foyer without the commitment. Most Chinoiserie papers come in numbered panels - making them incredibly easy to frame. 

Grasscloth:

Found: DecorPad

Designer Credit: SMW Design - TartanScot

But what happens if you're not the be all, end all when it comes to design decisions in your home; and your partner is absolutely against wallpaper? Well - there's always paint! And if you're looking to make a big impact in your foyer - think of going bold and dark:

Designer Credit: Courtney Giles

Looking for the perfect brown? Have your Benjamin Moore store mix up a sample of Martha Stewart Living: Monks Cloth. (If they can't do it for you - email me for the formula!) It's absolutely the most perfect gray brown for bedrooms and foyers. You won't be disappointed. I love the foyer above, because it shows how wonderfully the brown combines with antique gold frames, and jet black. You might remember that I dabbled with brown in my own foyer (for all of 20 days!) ...

And if bold and dark is just too gloomy, try something with a little more vibrant:

Designer Credit: Christopher Drake - House Beautiful

So there you have it - the end of week one of our Theme Weeks here on Color Outside the Lines. What did you think? Wanna keep going at it like this?

P.S., don't forget to check out my Cross Bottle and Sea Shell Bottles at Cross Bottle Guy! 

The Foyer : Mirrors

Keeping with our theme of Foyers, we've talked about front doors (best painted black unless they're antique), lanterns for light (unless you don't have the height - then think of flush mount lantern options - there are several at Shades of Light), Console tables for the much needed linear flat space for the deposit of mail and keys - and now the other necessary piece when decorating a foyer: Mirrors.

Mirrors in a foyer serve two major functions: 1) as a way to widen the visual space of the room by creating an expanding view of the walls beyond and 2) to provide yourself and guests with a place to double check their appearance before leaving or entering the rest of your home. 

There are a lot of ways to use mirrors in a foyer ... 

Photographer Credit: Lucas Allen

You can make a big and artful impact in a foyer by layering or hanging multiple mirrors on the entry wall. In this case, the frames are all the same hue, while the mirrors are different sizes. I think this combination works best. 

Designer Credit: Jean-Louis Denoit

Found: Pinterest

Architect Credit: Gibson Builders

Another option, and one that you might want to choose if you live in a home or space that doesn't have much architectural interest, is applying several mirrored squares to the wall in your entry and then framing it with mouldings that coordinate with your existing. Using mercerized or antique mirrors for this process gives a great look.

If you don't want to go through the process of applying mirrors to your wall - you could always find a very large mirror to hang or lean behind an open leg console table:

Designer Credit: Turner Davis Interiors

Designer Credit: Atmosphere Interior Design

It's a great option to not only expand the width of the space, but also the height - visually speaking. Of course, there is always the most traditional option:

Design Credit: William Hodkins

Found: http://belgianpearls.blogspot.com/2011/06/side-tables-and-pottery.html

Designer Credit: Mia James 

Designer Credit: Kay O'Toole - Found: http://cotedetexas.blogspot.com/2010_02_06_archive.html

So there you have it - what's the last thing we could possibly talk about when it comes to foyers? Well, check back with me tomorrow and see. 

The Foyer : Reader Help

I was shocked to get 14 emails (yet not a single comment) yesterday asking me where the table from this image from yesterday's blog on console tables could be found:

Photography Credit: Laurey W. Glenn

To be honest, I love that table too - so finding it for those interested not only give me a thrill for being helpful, but I was happy to source it for upcoming projects where I'll be pushing this piece for sure! 

Called the Arched Cathedral Table by Aiden Gray the piece is $2799 retail, but about 1/2 of that if your designer will pass along discounts. If not, you can always buy it here for $1699 and save yourself $1100! The table has been incredibly popular with designers ... and has been photographed in all sorts of decor styles:

Photography by Julie Landreth via Cote de Texas

Found: Aidan Gray Flip Book

Designer Credit: SuzAnn Kletzien Design

So there you go ... hope that helps.

The Foyer : Console Tables

Like I said yesterday, if you have a foyer, it's probably the smallest room of your house. Most of us only have room for narrow console tables for the necessary space we all need for keys, mail, and of course, pretty stuff when it comes to furnishing the space - so I figure we'll focus on those gorgeous vignettes atop and around consoles in the foyer for a little inspiration for the masses. Enjoy:

Designer Credit: Thom Filicia

Found: http://tartanscot.blogspot.com/2011/06/giddy-up.html

Designer Credit: Michael S Smith

Designer Credit: Hudson Interiors via DecorPad

Designer Credit: Sylvia Martin

Photographer Credit: Laurey W. Glenn

 Found: Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles

Designer Credit: Barry Dixon

Designer Credit:  Honey Collins

Design Credit: Bellacasa Design Associates Inc.

The Foyer : Lanterns

Foyers are typically small rooms, but one way to make a big impact in the room is with a light fixture of WOW material. One of my very favorite fixtures for a foyer is a lantern. In fact, in my own foyer, I used the Corinthian Iron Lantern from Shades of Light with silicone tipped bulbs.

Designer Credit: Artie Vanderpool - Buffalo Spree Home/Photographer: KC Kratt

P.S., check out that chair, will ya? I worked so hard making the slipcover and cushion for that thing!

Designer Credit: Artie Vanderpool

Found: At Home In Arkansas

Found: Decorpad

Designer Credit: Windsor Smith

Designer Credit: Alex Papachristidis

Designer Credit: Phoebe Howard

Found: Southern Accents

Found: Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles

Designer Credit: Sally Wheat / Found: Cote de Texas

Tomorrow:  The Foyer : Console Tables

Some New Decisions About The Blog, and FOYER WEEK

I have shared a lot of photos on this blog over the last 4 1/2 years, some of them I've taken of travels, our home, friends' homes and favorite stores ... but most of them have been found through hours and hours of scouring the internet. Most of the time, if I'm finding photos for a particular post, I will credit the photos immediately. Other times, I don't even think about it and by the time I find a post that the picture "fits" I forget where it came from!

Now that I've lost all of my saved images and have to start all over - I'm vowing to credit all of the photos you find on the blog that were not taken by me, to either the designer, the photographer, or the original site I found the photos on. This means a lot more work for me, but it ensures that credit is paid all the time, to those who deserve it.

Also, the Kitchen Month I did on the blog was by far the most successful month I ever had. I don't know if it was just because it was all about kitchens, or if it was because you knew that you could rely on the same topic each day, but over 100,000 readers tuned in this past February!! So, each week, the blog will have a "theme". It might be room types, colors, flowers, furniture styles, lighting ... heck, it could be baskets; but we'll start on Mondays and until Sunday you can bet that at 7:30am you'll find 10 inspiring photos about the same topic all week.

I'm getting a late start, but this week lets kick off our new theme with something most of us have and all of us find difficult to decorate:

THE FOYER : The Black Front Door

I am starting off Foyer Week with my favorite statement to the foyer, the piece that you touch before you ever see the room beyond, the front door. More specifically, a black front door:

Designer Credit: Mark D Sikes

Found: Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles

Designer Credit: Elizabeth Dinkel

Designer Credit: Windsor Smith

Found: Elle Decor Lookbook

Designer Credit: Suzanne Dimma

Designer Credit: Stephen Knollenberg

Found: Southern Accents

Designer Credit: Tom Sheerer

Designer Credit: Vicente Wolf

Found: http://www.markdsikes.com/tag/foyers/

Tomorrow - The Foyer: Lanterns