Wondering how to make your small entryway look bigger? A little custom design can go a long way.

First impressions are often lasting impressions. Will Rogers once said, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” It’s a sad but true fact of life—and one that becomes all the more frustrating when you’re attempting to make a good first impression and your entryway is unfortunately small and disorderly.

When you live in populous areas like Arlington or Washington D.C. where homes and apartments may be smaller in size—particularly in terms of entryways—you feel cramped and out of options for making your tiny foyer seem more spacious.

In situations like these, it’s helpful to consider how a little custom design might help you make your entryway appear both bigger and less crowded. Below, we’ll share an array of ideas related to lighting, decor for smaller rooms, space-efficient storage options, and—last but not least—adding a few final special touches to make your guests feel not only impressed but blessed to be welcomed into your home.

Ideas for How to Make an Entryway Look Bigger

When you’re figuring out how to make an entryway look bigger, bringing light into the equation often helps illuminate the way forward.

Bring Light into Your Entryway

There are three types of lighting that can help expand the apparent spaciousness of your interior entryway:

1. Natural lighting. Adding windows to your front door or entryway wall or a skylight above this area will quickly open up the look and feel of your foyer.

2. Overhead lighting. One of the easiest ways of widening your small entryway space is changing out your current lighting fixtures and exchanging it for suspended overhead pendant lighting or a chandelier. 

3. Table/wall lighting. Adding a table lamp or a wall light fixture can add extra finesse to your entryway space. You might like to dim your overhead lighting and turn on the table lamp for evening events or dinner gatherings at your home.

Decorate to Make Your Entryway Look More Impressive

There are some simple decorating tricks that can have an immediate impact on the overall look and feel of your foyer. Personalizing the style of your entryway with paint, patterned rugs, and floating or corner shelves help create an entrance to your home that is not only welcoming and visually interesting but uniquely, unequivocally, you.

• Add paint with light colors to visually widen the room. Whites and off-whites, blues, and greens tend to be the most effective because they are most reflective—meaning they’ll make the most of whatever lighting scheme you’ve chosen to brighten up your entryway with.

• Supply a patterned rug or runner as an eye-catcher and potential conversational piece. This runner will welcome and usher your guests in while visually “stretching” your entryway to make it appear longer than it actually is.

• Add floating shelves will allow you to take advantage of valuable wall space for displaying knick-knacks, small plants, and other home accents without taking up any floor space. Affixing them higher up on the walls, closer to the ceiling, will also help give the illusion of a taller room.

• Incorporate custom corner shelving if your foyer happens to have a corner nook. Here, you can display anything from family photos to potpourri arrangements, coffee table books, or magazines.

Expand the Visual Appeal of Your Space

While you don’t want to clutter the walls of your entryway with a plethora of pictures or other art pieces, selectively chosen and carefully placed wall art and stylish prints can add to the perceived size of a room as well as its visual appeal. A long, lovely landscape can work alongside a hall runner to make the room feel longer, while a towering mountain print can make the ceiling feel higher. And of course, a big, beautiful family portrait could be just the ticket to nailing that great first impression.

A large mirror is another option for how to make an entryway look bigger. Staging the foyer with a well-positioned mirror serves as a highlight for the wall and creates an immediate visual impact. A framed mirror should be hung at eye-level so it can be a focal point of the room. As with other wall art, be sure to select a mirror that is wider or taller in size. An oversized mirror will instantly make the room feel more spacious.

Finally, finishing touches like a bouquet of flowers or a cashmere jasmine-scented candle on the top of your custom shelving will add an extra special flair to the room that’s sure to leave a lasting good impression.

Tuck Away Items in Custom-Designed Storage

Tucking away items in decorative cabinetry or a custom reach-in closet will enable you to pick up the clutter and put items out of sight. Some ideas for doing so include:

• Incorporate custom cabinetry. When you need more storage, custom cabinetry can help with storing a variety of household goods such as candles and quick-grab items like scarves, hats, or sneakers.

• Remodel your hall or entryway closet and find a second storage area. When you are seeking a place to tuck away items and remove clutter, you may need to remodel a closet and don’t know where to begin. Consider ideas such as simply using the space for coats and jackets, and outdoor wear, with a few hangers remaining for holding guests’ jackets. You can store overflow items in a closet under the stairs or another location to keep this ready-access closet free of clutter.

• Add sturdy shelving to your closets and include chrome bins for organizing items more easily.

For additional small closet entryway ideas that keep your foyer neat and orderly or for even more creative storage solutions that help solve how to make an entryway look bigger, consider consulting with a custom designer who can help implement these ideas with a custom design of your foyer.

Implementing a Custom-Designed Entryway

Sometimes, remodeling an area like your entryway requires special design assistance to successfully finish the job. You may need help incorporating your favorite ideas, as well as custom-fit storage, closets, cabinetry, and more.

Whether you’re looking for a custom closet for your entryway or just ways to implement ideas for how to make an entryway look bigger through custom design, Closet America is here to help.

Contact us at your leisure to learn more about how we can quickly design and implement these solutions for you. Or, if you’re ready to get started, go ahead and schedule a free design consultation today!