entryway-turned-sitting-area refresh with wayfair

This post is sponsored by Wayfair, a brand I love and shop from regularly. Thanks for supporting businesses that I partner with!

Hey everyone! Today, I’m super excited to share photos from our entryway turned sitting area/play space. It’s not 100% finished, but it’s super close, and I’m really in love with the way this space looks so far. The only thing we really need to do is find art we like to go on the walls (because Lucy’s birthday balloon wreath thing won’t last forever, sadly! 🎈😩). Our house was built in 1919 and has an awkwardly large entry area. When you walk into the house, you arrive in this room that I’m now calling an entryway/sitting area/play space and from this area, you can walk down the hallway, into the dining room, or turn into the living room. We decided to turn this corner of the entryway into a sitting area and play space – here’s how it turned out!

Right when we moved in, we painted the walls and baseboard trim (along with the other rooms in our house) a bright white (Chantilly Lace by Benjamin Moore). We also ended up later painting the doorway and window trim which also realllly brightened up the room. Painting really helped us start with a fresh, blank slate in this space, and once that was done, I was ready to start actually decorating! ✨

The first thing we purchased for the room was this shoe storage bench. We needed this room to function like a traditional entryway, and so it was important to have storage for shoes, bags and accessories. Typically, we keep shoes on the shelf below and keep the diaper bag and Eric’s backpack on top of the bench. The bench also has storage, so we keep miscellaneous items like gloves and hats in there. Remember our hanging shelves in our SF apartment? We painted them white and have them hanging above the storage bench.

Because the room is so large, we wanted to create a dedicated sitting/play area on the side of the entryway. We previously had a too-small rug in this corner, so swapped it for this black and white Moroccan-inspired rug from Wayfair. It actually is very similar to the rug we have in our living room, which I think helps cohesively tie the two rooms together while letting them both stand alone on their own. This rug is super soft and fluffy, so it’s really comfortable for lots of playtime in this space! I snagged two of these sherpa rocking chairs and placed our gold round bar cart (from Wayfair about 2 years ago) in the middle to create a dedicated sitting area out of our awkwardly large entry space.

Lucy’s play kitchen (from IKEA that my parents ‘tricked out’ with paint and a modern “backsplash”) fits perfectly in the corner in between the two windows. My mom painted her kitchen the same color as our statement wall in the dining room (Planet Earth by Valspar) and I love how the play kitchen adds a pop of color to our now entryway room.

Of course, no room in our house would be complete without LOTS of plants! We have a large dangly plant on the shelf, a large palm in in the corner, a medium sized plant next to the storage bench, plus I added some smaller plants to Lucy’s kitchen area corner! Greenery adds so much life and brightness to a space. 🌿I ordered this gorgeous stone hanging planter and hung it above Lucy’s play kitchen in the corner of the room. It is gorgeous and looks way more expensive than it was…I wish I would have snagged two of them! I also ordered this black and white patterned hanging planter from Wayfair, but chose to hang the planter in another room instead of the entryway/sitting area/play space.

Now that we spruced up our entryway with some form and a lot of function, we’ve been using this area SO much more! Lucy and I play in here every day. I’ll drink coffee in a chair while she plays at her kitchen, or we’ll both be on the floor playing with Jack. During the first few months in our home, this corner of our room was just a ‘catch all’ space – it didn’t really have a purpose and we didn’t enjoy being there. Next up, we will put up some art on the walls (I am moving the black surf print into our living room) to complete this space. I am SO in love with how the room looks now, and really proud of how we were able to create a multipurpose space that fits our needs in life right now. 💛

DETAILS:

STORAGE BENCH

RUG

SHERPA ROCKING CHAIRS

HANGING STONE PLANTER

GOLD BAR CART

PLAY KITCHEN