Make an Entranceway

Satisfy the entry requirements. “You definitely miss a defining moment when your home has no vestibule,” said Mindy Gayer, an interior designer in Newport Beach, Calif. Her own bungalow, shown left, lacked an entryway, so she set up a vignette nearby with all the trappings of a front hall. Near the door, she stationed a vintage console— storage for shoes, backpacks, dog leashes—and topped it with coffee table books, a rustic flower vase, a bowl for dumping keys, and a lamp to diffuse soft lighting. Above, a mirror opens up the space and reflects the larger room. “They all work together to create a moment that feels like a statement,” she said. Roll out the right carpet. Place a rug wisely to define an entry.

In her bungalow, Gayer created the illusion of a hallway by positioning the pale plaid carpet that grounds the living room’s seating area so its edge aligns with the side of the window nearest the “foyer.” This leaves the wood floor that stretches in from the front door uncovered, its own domain; a wicker basket serves as a clear punctuation mark between the two spaces.

To ensure the door announces itself, she chose light gray tongue-and-groove paneling, exposed hinges, and bronze hardware. Get in the right frame of mind. To fashion a landing pad inside the front door of his Orlando home, interior designer Marc Thee clad part of the room’s ceiling, floor, and the first few feet of walls with dark walnut wood. The substantial frame gives way to a living room of light stone floor and white walls. “The depth and richness of the wood gives you time to relax and feel welcome before entering the rest of the room,” said Thee, of Marc-Michaels Interior Design in Winter Park, Fla. You can achieve the same effect more affordably with wallpaper, he said, or contrasting paint. Work on the layout.

A cottage in Oxford, Miss., suffered from an absent entrance until designer Tara Engelberg of Tara Felice Interiors in Memphis, Tenn., pivoted to a new solution. She floated a white sofa off the wall and turned its back on the front door, a move that emphatically divorced the couch from the entry. “Having the sofa back [visible] as you enter creates separation. You are no longer walking into the middle of a life,” she said. “I used a performance fabric so you can throw a coat over it without worry.”

Divide and conquer. The main door of a mews house in London opened straight into a kitchen until Tom Cox, principal at local firm HÁM Interiors, found an architectural solution. He anchored a floor-to-ceiling wooden partition—painted the same dusty red as the front door—perpendicular to the door so it backs the kitchen’s banquette. The partition’s wide shaker panels lead up to eight window panes that align with the top of the banquette and let light through the space-defining wall. “These partitions are a simple and effective game-changer,” said Cox.

—Antonia van der Meer