How to furnish a modern entrance with an indoor bench

If it's true that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, then you shouldn't judge a house by its entrance but...that's just a theory.

Facts reveal as the first impression is the one that most influences the perception of an environment.
The entrance is the business card of your home. Furnishing an entrance hall with care will allow you to feel welcomed upon your return and your guests to appreciate your personal style.

Make your entryway the manifesto of your home

Password "consistency". Stay true to your aesthetic taste even with the furniture of the entrance.

Identify the guidelines of your furnishing style .
Are you a minimalist or a maximalist? Do you like white walls, wallpapers or colorful paints better? Do you have a passion for raw and natural materials or do you love designer furniture characterized by clean and modern lines?

Now think about the elements that make your way of decorating unique and distinguishable. Those details that are repeated in all the rooms and that really speak of your home. Imagine them next to each other, like in a mood board .

I bet you already have the clearest ideas on how to furnish the entrance. The solution we seek, often, is in front of our eyes.

Furnishing an entrance…that doesn't exist

Have you noticed that we have stopped building houses with entrances ?
Until the 1990s, apartments almost always had a special space , dedicated to the functions of the entrance to the house. Sometimes, this space corresponded to the beginning of the corridor , other times it was just a separate room . Today the open space model sees the modern entrance as a fluid and unfiltered connection with the living area.

The question arises: how to create an entrance in an open space? All you need is a wall , large or small, adjacent to the front door.

The entrance bench: an ancient and versatile piece of furniture

There is a piece of furniture that lends itself excellently to furnishing an entrance to the living room : the bench .

Being a piece of furniture that is longer than wide, it is very suitable for dressing up compact spaces . In addition, being an open piece of furniture, it lets light through and doesn't take up much visual space . In an entrance to the living room, this is an advantage: the discreet volume of the bench does not steal the show from the view of the living area.

The bench is a piece of furniture created to be a spartan but roomy seat, to the point of bringing a large part of the family together in front of the fireplace.
It was once a simple plank of wood, long and single. It wasn't supposed to be comfortable. It was used in churches and in outdoor spaces and had only a practical and non-decorative function.

Even older than that of the bench, is the story of the chest , home to wedding trousseaus, ancestor of the wardrobe, solid and indestructible portable suitcase.

Before being enhanced in terms of design and accessories ( armrests, padding and fine fabrics ), these furnishings had to wait until the 1800s, when they were inserted in the large entrances of buildings . At the entrance, the bench is a comfortable seat for taking off and putting on shoes, but this is only the most obvious and obvious of its functions.

In reality, an entrance bench is above all a point of support for decorative and, at the same time, practical compositions.

On the bench you can indulge yourself in creating styling with:

• small containers for storing keys and anything else,
• table mirrors for a last look before going out,
• pots for plants and flowers that welcome you with a load of beauty,
• room perfumers , for a breath of freshness as soon as the door is opened,
• frames with photos or prints , to tell the story of who lives in the house.

Above the bench…style is not lacking!

Here are 3 ideas for setting up the wall on which the entrance bench rests with style .

The first is to place a large mirror above the bench.

In an entrance that opens into the living area, the mirror allows you to reflect the main spaces, revealing a preview of what you would see by taking just a few more steps.
If the mirror is round , it can be placed in a central position with respect to the entrance bench. If, on the other hand, the mirror has a shape that extends vertically , it can be placed, again on the portion of the wall above the bench, but in a lateral position.

The gallery wall is an interesting solution. The part of the wall above the entrance bench can be framed with a series of prints and paintings that end where the seat begins and ends .

The last idea to make the entrance to the house beautiful and functional is to place a coat hanger above the bench , in order to optimize the space on a practical level . If the bench and coat rack are coordinated , the effect will be very homogenous and clean.

A design bench is also an excellent choice for a corridor, a basement or a hallway. Take advantage of these ideas to make these spaces extraordinary , always a little underrated.

Have you seen Hiro's new entryway products?
Come and discover them!