Before and after : our entryway quick transformation

You’ve ever walked into a space, and immediately thought wow, now this is what I’m talking about? Or have you ever thought – now this ain’t it? The latter is how you’d feel if you walked into our apartment. 

When I first moved in, thinking about how the entryway looks were the least of my worries. As we’re slowly getting the apartment furnished, I have the capacity to think about the entryway.  An entryway sets the tone of how you feel when you get home. And with the way mine is looking right now,  definitely sets the wrong tone. 

We actually don’t have much of an entryway. The way ours is structured makes it difficult for me to think of the space as a functional space. As you arrive at the front door, the door opens inward. That doesn’t leave much space to put things behind it as there is a wall there. On the adjacent wall, there is an electric meter which makes things difficult to style on that wall. 

One thing I do know though is I want it to be very functional which is why I had the storage shoe rack there. But the problem is it’s so dang ugly. 

For this space, I didn’t make a mood board because I wanted to use the furniture we already had. The first thing I did was remove the shoe rack. This gave me a real feel of how big the space was. 

I contemplated adding a rug first but then I plan to add a runner for the hallway anyways. Since my entryway is not quite a dedicated space,  I wasn’t sure if having two rugs here would work. For now, I will leave it as it is. 

The first thing I placed was this rattan bench which doubles as our dining room bench. I thought it great to start with a foundational piece that would serve as my first building block. I was actually disappointed that the bench is almost as long as the wall on the back. I guess it’s fine since I ‘shopped my home for it. One day I could have a dedicated piece for this space. For now, this bench works great because it has space to store one or two pairs of shoes under it. It’s a bummer that the bench has this bar under it, otherwise, some storage baskets would have been perfect under it.

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I then added some textiles but I didn’t want to add too much. I still want the bench to be functional when someone is removing their shoes to enter the apartment. So these pillows and the throw did the trick. I saw these beautiful leaves in a florist shop and it was love at first sight.  I thought they would add the right pop of colour and they sure did that. As a long term solution, I plan on getting an artificial plant, this space doesn’t have much natural light.  To balance the white space above the bench, I hung these Binga baskets which I bought in Newlands, Harare.

Overall I am in love with the look. I am proud of the fact that I didn’t have to spend so much money to upgrade this space. Now I love how pretty and functional it is. Of course, we’ll have to figure out a way to store the extra pair of shoes we have but that’s another story for another day.

So is this the forever look for this space? No. I want my home to give more modern traditional vibes. At the moment this space gives me Boho Afrocentric vibes.

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What do you think of this look? What is your entryway looking like right now? Tell me below.