Pretty Winter Foyer Decorating Ideas

Easy ideas that are savvy and practical winter foyer decorating ideas. We want these important areas in our home to be functional and attractive. Here's how...

Winter foyer decorating means equipping our foyers and indoor landing spaces to meet the needs of our family and visitors who step inside our front door during this colder and darker season. It also means having a space that is pretty and warm and welcoming! Let’s talk about decorating our foyers for winter.

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THE IMPORTANCE OF SEASONALLY DECORATING YOUR FOYER

Your foyer is like a big welcome mat for your home! And the first impression of the inside our homes! It is the first place we usher people into our homes and greet them!

Today let’s chat about creating a space that meets the needs of winter and gives a little decorative nod to the season too!

Do you decorate with the current season in mind? I do. And adding just a little hint of each season to our foyers is such a pretty addition to this important space.

FOYER DECORATING SHOULD BE FUNCTIONAL AND FABULOUS

For a room to meet its potential it must be both functional and attractive, or as I like to say, fabulous.

The foyer is one of those spaces in our homes that serves a very important purpose for anyone walking through our front doors. We don’t need to be experts in interior design to have both a functional and fabulous foyer. We just need a little common sense know-how and some easy decorating tips! And I’m here to help with that!

Before we chat about making our foyers pretty let’s chat about functionality!

Here are just a few functions of a foyer to keep in mind…

• to usher in and welcome guests and family
• a foyer serves as a depository of coats, purses, shoes, boots, etc
• a first impresion
• to give a little acknowledgement of the season at hand
• and a place, at the end of a visit, our guests and family can collect their items and say goodbye

MEETING WINTER’S NEEDS IN A FOYER

In the winter, it’s smart to think about our walkways and front porches as an extension of our foyer!

Clean off, shovel off or brush off any snow and salt from walkways and porch. Visitors should easily and safely be able to get from our driveways into our foyer!

If winter is cold and or snowy you might need to think a bit more about your foyer as a place to take off snowy or wet shoes, peel off hats, coats mittens.

There can be a lot of “stuff” that comes with guests in the winter. Think about where you will stash away your guests’ things before they arrive. “Stuff” can make a mess! So make a plan to get all that “stuff” out of the foyer and put it away.

WINTER FOYERS NEED AN AREA RUG

If you live in an area that has inclement weather, you need to think about adding an area rug or runner to your foyer.

Snowy or wet boots or shoes bring in lots of water and water can cause slips and even falls. It is also hard on our floors

A rug can add warmth and personality and give a big nod to the color palette of our home but in the winter a rug can also absorb the wet and moisture that comes in with people and pets!

So make sure the rug you choose for your foyer is not too precious or expensive. A rug should be able to stand up to water and dirt!

We chose a very sturdy and inexpensive faux oriental rug for our foyer. I wanted something fun with a big dose of color that would be a little clue to the greens we have been using as an accent color in the rest of our home.

It also cleans up beautifully!

We have 5 little grandbabies and lots of dogs! So we needed an area rug that stains would not set in! So far all the messes on the rug have cleaned up wonderfully!

This rug was so inexpensive that after a few years of heavy use, we will be happy to replace it! Even if I just get one calendar year out of it I will be so pleased!

You can see our foyer rug HERE.

WHERE TO PUT ALL THOSE COATS?

A winter foyer gets called to a bit of heavy lifting as it is usually the place winter coats and scarves and mittens and snowsuits and gloves and hats and boots are taken off.

So thinking about where to put winter outerwear is a big part of the winter foyer decorating! The idea is to neatly stow it away!

When our grandchildren come and it snows our foyer can quickly become overwhelmed with snowy clothing and boots and rosy-cheeked kids with staticky hair!

Thankfully we have a laundry room just off the foyer that has a big dryer and a place for coats. There is a door that sits in back of the white chair in this picture that leads to the laundry room.

If you have a closet in or near your foyer, count yourself lucky! We have what I call a “half closet” that is just big enough for guest coats and a basket for shoes. And in the image above you can get a glimpse of our hall coat closet at the far right of the image.

If you don’t have a hall closet one great solution for coats and more is a coat rack. They are so versatile and I think they look fabulous in a foyer!

If your foyer is really a part of your living room, carve a little bit of wall space out for a vertical coat rack that hangs on the wall. When guests are not using it they are great for hanging grab-and-go baskets (like mine) or other decor.

We’ve had this vertical coat rack that hangs on our foyer wall in both our StoneGable and Tanglewood homes. It is so functional and can be very decorative too!

GIVE GUESTS A PLACE TO SIT IN THE FOYER

If you have space in your foyer, entry hall, entryway or small designated spot add a chair, settee, or bench.

The addition of a place to sit will be much appreciated by guests and family, especially if they need to put shoes and boots on.

During Christmas, I took the chair out of our foyer but quickly put it back when I realized how many times I was on the floor shoving little kids’ feet into boots! A chair makes this job so much easier!

You really don’t need much more than a chair like the petite slipcovered chair in our foyer. I added a Mongolian pillow to the chair to give it a wintery look.

Even if your foyer is very small think about adding a garden stool to your foyer to use as a seat.

OTHER WINTER FOYER DECORATING NEEDS

Here are a few other items you will be happy to have in your foyer…

• umbrella stand
• boot tray
• storage baskets
• bins
• hooks

Things like umbrella stands and boot trays don’t have to live in your foyer all winter but have them on hand when you know they will be called into action.

I’ve been looking for an age for the perfect umbrella stand for our foyer. I have a penchant for vintage canes and I’m thinking about adding them with the umbrella stand right inside the door under the round mirror.

ADD A TABLE OR SHELF TO THE FOYER

A grand entryway or a small foyer or a landing pad in your living room, no matter the size, should have a flat surface for functional and pretty things.

This will usually be the focal point of your foyer! Even a foyer needs a pretty focal point!

Think of a table or flat surface as the most important piece of furniture in your entryway decor!

Our foyer is not very wide but very long. A long console table works perfectly here. It’s functional because we have a lamp on it and a big grouping of candles in the winter that also give quite a bit of light and a good dose of ambiance too!

A flat surface is the place to add a bit of style, your personality, and a little nod to the season.

This year there is very little in the foyer that screams “winter”! However, I used lots of white and again the group of candles give a warm glow.

BRING IN THE LIGHT

Your foyer should have good lighting! There is a lot of activity that can take place in the foyer, and many times we are welcoming guests for dinner or in the evening, and winter evenings begin early!

We have a chandelier on a dimmer that is perfect for flooding this area with light. It hangs on the ceiling from a vaulted ceiling high above our foyer!

Truth be told I am not a fan of overhead lighting so I put a lamp on the console table and it adds a pleasant diffused circle of light at the door. So much softer and prettier! And our white walls reflect light so well that use just this lamp most evenings.

A grouping of candles, both real and faux, gathered together in a tray adds a romantic and cozy light as well that is reflecting their candleglow around the foyer. I don’t light all the candles in my cheetah tray but only the battery-operated ones. They don’t have to be tended and the other candles look good without being lit!

MIRRORS

A mirror is not only a fabulous bit of decor to add to a winter foyer, but it is so functional too.

A mirror is a must-have!

I am waiting patiently for a beautiful round ball mirror to replace the Numbers 33 sign above our console table. I’ve gotten four delay notices since August. Although it is a bit frustrating I am a patient woman and just keep thinking about how nice the new mirror will look once it comes to its new home.

To the left of the sign, I added a beautiful convex mirror near the sidelights on our door. Wow, it brings in so much natural light and because it is convex gives a panoramic view of our study french doors and what lies beyond.

I’ve had this mirror for decades. It’s just the perfect size to stick here and there! And it has been here and there in many rooms of our home.

The moral of this little story is to add a mirror to your foyer, no matter the size.

ADD SOMETHING ORGANIC TO A WINTER FOYER

A little bit of something organic like a faux plant, an orchid or something green looks so attractive and welcoming in a winter foyer. Most of us long for a little bit of organic life!

Most often when I’m pursuing sites like Pinterest I see lots of evergreens in winter foyers. And that is certainly an option.

For me, evergreens are not a great option. I think they can make a foyer look too Christmassy. And as the winter moves along I want to also move away from evergreens and gently move towards spring.

I used a little bit of faux “fluff” in a white container by the lamp.

And on the other side of the console, I put some just budding branches in a rough stamped white pottery vase.

That little bit of green against all the white makes a big difference! The green organics add life!

Here are other organics you can use in your foyer…

• pinecones
• a bow of paperwhites or other bulbs
• boxood
• a bouquet of flowers
• topiaries
• a live green plant

Our foyers deserve a little thought and care during the winter months! Let’s make them wonderfully functional and fabulous all at the same time as we wait for spring!

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