Welcome To Our Foyer

I took all my Christmas decorations down over two weeks ago, but I'm still working on putting all of our rooms back in order.  I've never really shown you our foyer, except a glimpse of it decorated for fall or Christmas.  Like the other rooms in our house, it has changed and evolved over the 16 years we've lived here.

Foyers can be tricky to decorate, don't you think?  Our foyer is by no means large at, 11' 8" x 4' 4," but it's not really tiny either.  This is the first house we've owned that has a foyer.  We liked our little Craftsman bungalow in Greensboro, but it didn't have a foyer.

I think the first order of business in decorating a foyer is to have a few pieces of furniture for your space.  When we moved here from our first home, we didn't have any furniture that would have looked right in a foyer.  We were very fortunate, because my husband's grandmother gave us her lyre harp table with a marble top, and it's the perfect size for the dimensions of our foyer.

I love its carved rose handles.

Shortly afterward, for my birthday, my mother-in-law gave me the pretty mirror that hangs above the table; so we were off to a good start.

We already had the ladder back chair, and we later received the brass wall sconces as a Christmas gift.  We probably got those three elements the first year we lived here, but everything else has been added slowly (with many changes) over the years.

The first years in our home, I was working part-time, and we were raising our son, so I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about how I wanted to decorate each room of our house.  But I've been giving it a lot more thought in the years since our son went off to college.  I'd eventually like to have traditional hardwood floors (rather than parquet), I'd like to have an outlet for a table lamp, and I'd like to replace the cheap, 1970's builder-grade closet door and double doors leading to the den.  Otherwise, I think I finally have the foyer fixed in a way that really pleases me.

Since this is a visitor's first impression of the interior of our home, I wanted it to look as nice and as welcoming as possible.  I tend to like the more classic design elements, and that usually applies to furniture, artwork, and accessories.  But I also think every room needs a little touch of whimsy...

The thing that probably changes the most in our foyer over the years is what I choose to display on the table.  I think the very first thing I put on the table, and it always returns to the table after Christmas holidays, is the lead crystal bowl filled with potpourri.  I recently replaced the fall and winter potpourri with the softer colors of spring, which also look better with our wallpaper.

I used the flameless candle at Christmas, and I just added a candle ring with purple and gold frosted berries and acorns to use throughout the rest of the winter season.

The antique vase was also given to us by my husband's grandmother, and I think it blends perfectly with the other colors in the room.  The beautiful plate was a long-ago birthday gift from my sister, and I treasure it dearly.  The plate reads "Sister Are Blossoms In The Garden Of Life."  I love the charming sweaters with lace collars worn by the two little girls.  The plate used to sit on our piano, but I changed things around on the piano a few years ago, and this spot seemed made for my plate.

Over the years, I've had various things on this table -- framed family photos, books, candlesticks, but I like it better now than I ever have.  Until I decide to change it again.  :)  It's a woman's prerogative, don't you know?

My most recent addition to the table came this year right after Christmas.  Our parents gave us all some money for Christmas this year, and I've been giving careful thought to what I want to buy with mine.  Actually, that sentence should be written in the past tense, because I've already bought several things.  For this table, I decided to get a classic bust --

-- a bust of Diana, the Roman Goddess of the hunt and the moon.  I like the way she looks on our table.

Another thing I bought after Christmas was a new cane for our umbrella stand.  This cane has a Derby-style handle with a hand-crafted spiral around the shaft -- love the way it looks.  I purchased the cane online, and I really like this store.  They have quality merchandise, and I think the prices are reasonable. 

We already had the old umbrella; I keep it because I never see umbrellas with the curved handles anymore, do you?  I also had the other cane with the faux ivory, eagle's-head handle.  I found it on discount at a local gift shop many years ago.

  
The umbrella stand has a funny story attached to it.  I searched everywhere (especially online) for an umbrella/walking stick stand that I really liked and that would look right in this room.  Finally, I found this brass stand listed online from a store in England.  I loved the design, so after figuring out the price in U.S. dollars, plus shipping, we decided we could get it.  Well...let me just say that the website was not quite as, um, user-friendly as Amazon, but we filled in our address and payment information, and I started counting the weeks for its arrival.  After about three months, I was getting really concerned.  I think we finally e-mailed the store and asked about our purchase and got a reply stating that it had been shipped several weeks earlier.  My husband, and a few other people, told me I'd probably never see my umbrella stand.  Not because the company was dishonest, but just because of the difficulty in getting the international address sorted.

Sure enough, after another month or so, the store e-mailed us to say that the umbrella stand had been returned to them due to an incorrect address.  I think it had basically been sitting in a post office somewhere in the U.S. for three months or more, then was returned to the seller in England.  We gave them our address again, and the poor little umbrella stand traveled back across the pond to finally arrive at our post office just slightly dented after all its travels.  So now it's something of a conversation piece.  :)

The other big change we've made in this room was to replace the cheap, unattractive light fixture with a small chandelier.  Those of you who feel you want to scream any time you see shiny brass and have painted and bronzed all of yours, might want to skip this next picture.

Try not to hate me, but I happen to like shiny brass, because again, it's just sort of a classic, traditional look.  Trust me when I say this is a huge improvement over what was here before.

A couple more pictures...

That's it for our little foyer.  So how about you; is your entryway a decorating dilemma?  I'd love to hear about your decorating style.  Thank you for your visit; I enjoy hearing from you, so I hope you'll leave me a comment!  I'm joining the following parties:

The Tablescaper for Seasonal Sundays
Susan at Between Naps on the Porch, for Metamorphosis Monday
Kathy at A Delightsome Life for A Return To Lovliness
Marty at A Stroll Thru Life, for Tabletop Tuesday

Have a great weekend!

Denise