Family Foyer Design Tips to Organize Your Family

Do you find yourself constantly running after your children, asking them to pick up their backpacks, sporting equipment, coats, and shoes? Or, perhaps you’re the culprit leaving briefcases, cell phones, and mail scattered around the home. If so, a well-planned family foyer may help to organize your busy family.

Today’s homeowners often opt for a thoughtful “mudroom” or a “family foyer,” a second, less-formal entrance to the home for use by family and close friends. While mudrooms of the past were often small and dark, perhaps doubled as the laundry room, and often weren’t particularly appealing nor exceptionally organized, times have changed. These spaces are now bright, inviting, full of detail, and frequently serve as the home’s organizational command center. Whether in a repurposed space or an addition, a well-designed, well-executed family foyer may be the key to a smoother-running home.

What Makes a Family Foyer Work?

With a goal of organizing “stuff” right where it enters the house, the most common feature in a family foyer is dedicated storage spaces for each member of the family – from kids to adults and even pets. Consider lockers with hooks for jackets and sporting equipment, and cubbies for book bags and shoes. Add a bench with closed storage below for a convenient place to put on shoes and stow seasonal items like hats and gloves.

The Options are Endless

As if a well-organized storage area isn’t reason enough, with a little planning, the space can be further designed to provide convenient solutions for many other household needs. How about adding a mail station for sorting bills, shredding unwanted solicitations, and recycling countless catalogs? Or a charging station that brings order to our countless gadgets? Or a tiled dogwashing center with its own floor-level faucet for cleaning muddy paws, and an adjacent space for your pet’s food bowls and cozy bed? Also consider a message center with the family calendar and a blackboard or corkboard for posting notes, invitations, and important phone numbers. The options are endless.

Family Foyer Design Tips

If you can almost feel the weight of the clutter lifting just reading this, perhaps a family foyer is in your future. If so, keep in mind the following family foyer design tips as you begin planning:

• Think carefully about all the ways the space can be used to help bring order to everyday life, so you can plan features that make those tasks easier.
• When selecting materials and finishes, make sure they are durable. Keep in mind that you want the room to get a lot of traffic and, especially when kids and storage are involved, things are bound to get banged around a bit.
• Discuss flooring options with your designer. They can advise regarding materials that will be durable, easy to maintain, and beautiful given your family’s usage and the design of your home.
• Decide if you are fine with the open locker look or if you want cabinet doors to help control visual clutter. There are tradeoffs to both options.
• Consider adding a child-friendly powder room in this area so it’s convenient when the kids are outside playing or coming in from school. This should help to keep your formal powder room ready for company.
• Include lots of light. A combination of natural light, from windows, doors or skylights, and well-planned task lighting will help make the space more inviting and family friendly.
• Pay attention to the details as you would the rest of your home. Add the crown molding, wainscoting, or beadboard; add children’s artwork or photos of the family; and decorate the room with great colors and fabrics.

The bottom line is a well-planned family foyer is an ideal way to help organize your busy family and home. Furthermore, it is a great way to protect the investment you made in the rest of your home from muddy-shoed kids, dirty-pawed pets, and piles of endless clutter.