Foyer Furniture, Lighting and More

When I decided to remove the archway by the front door and extend the foyer deeper into the house, space was created for two separate furniture vignettes: the narrow console table and mirror immediately off the front door and a second grouping in the main artery of the home where entrances into the kitchen, dining room, basement and power room and closets all converge (formerly the kitchen).

For the first vignette, I needed a surface for stashing keys, mail and unloading parcels when going in and out of the front door. I found the perfect fit in the vintage greek key florentine console from Decorum Decorative Finds. Besides the obvious presence of my favourite neoclassical motif, I loved the ivory and gold tones which coordinated well with the vintage gilded mirror from FOC IT that I already had in my old apartment. The original marble top that came with the console was wasn’t in the best shape nor the right colour, so instead I used a remnant of calacatta marble leftover from our kitchen island.

The second vignette was more about filling a blank wall with something pretty, so I turned it into a moment to show off some of my favourite collections, including cloisonné vases from my grandmother and favourite design books.

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Foyer Before and After: A Harlequin (Floor) Romance

The most obvious standout element in the foyer is the harlequin marble floor, but it didn’t always look so fabulous…

When we first toured the house we would call our home, I was greeted with pale pink as far as the eye could see. The walls and wainscoting were pink as was the wall to wall shag carpeting. The archway closing in the space immediately in front of the door didn’t help from feeling like I was drowning in a bottle of calamine lotion. What kept my eye moving forward though was a charming original carved wooden banister and crystal basket chandelier which hinted at the potential of the home.

By the time we had closed on the house, the owners had torn up the carpet in effort to get the house ready to put on the market and the original hardwood was revealed, including a pleasant surprise of stunning parquet in the foyer. I wanted to preserve it but because we were altering the floorplan so extensively (removing the archway and extending the foyer into where original kitchen stood), I decided to embrace the opportunity and went for one of my favourite flooring motifs of all time: harlequin.

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