“Living habits of an average family are made up, in varying proportions, of the following: entertainment, relaxation, sleeping, cooking, eating, dressing, laundering, playing (children) and story.” ~Decorating Liveable Homes, 1937.
Dear Friends,
Image courtesy of Cary Walker (Little Love Blue @ Flikr)
According to feng shui practices, my home is a definite “Don’t.” The front door opens directly into the front room and is alignment with the kitchen door and a large kitchen window. It was built in the 1920s which would be explained by Elizabeth Burris-Meyer as that time when architects didn’t really care about functionality of a home (and, I dare say, feng shui). After 1929, and with the advent of The Great Depression when middle class homemakers suddenly had to do without any “help,” houses became much more practical.
According to Mrs. Burris-Meyer, our front hall or foyer is the introduction guests and strangers have to the home. It should give them a snapshot of what the rest of the house will be like. The hall should include:
- a table
- a mirror
- accommodation for wet wraps and overshoes
- possibly a chair
- a good lighting unit
She reminds us that scale matters and any furniture in the hall should still allow people to move about freely. Apartment dwellers can trick the eye by using mirrors to make a small foyer seem larger than it is.
Feng shui tells us that an inviting entry invites opportunity whereas clutter causes energy to get stuck. What does your front hall and entry-area look like? Is it inviting and welcoming or is it cluttered and chaotic? What is your home’s first impression?
To your fabulous Technicolor life!
Dr. Julie-Ann
Well, my feng is most likely ‘fooey’ not shui. We have a good entry, but it’s not set up quite that well.
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If that is a photo of your home, it’s lovely. Beautiful floors and your front door is wonderful.
Thanks, Lisa, but it is a photo I found on Flickr. I don’t have an entry hall…at all. Not even a small one that I can use mirrors in to make it seem larger!
Our apartment is configured in such a way that we don’t have a traditional foyer. We have one door opening into the living/dining room and one door opening into the kitchen with a hallway in-between. So I split the difference and created a “Landing Strip” in that hallway.
Amusingly enough, it is “Hallway/Entry-way Week” in the Ley-Lippincott domicile, so I too am spending a ridiculous amount of time dwelling on that part of the dwelling.
I lived in a ’70′s house that actually had an entryway with the kind of space discussed. The ’30′s house had a short entryway with closet — just a walkway. The front door was situated so as to allow a direct view into the bathroom. But all the other houses of my experience, including the farmhouse, the modular home, my mother’s Sears’ Craftsman pre-fab, my grandmother’s homes — none of them had entryways. Then there’s my daughter’s condo, the sum total of which might be characterized as an entryway.
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Dr Julie-Ann, well it may not be your house, but you have good taste in photos of entry ways
We live in an apartment, so we have not entry way (the door opens between the living room and dining room. My mother’s house (built around 1900) had an entry way that lead to a beautiful staircase. But the rest of the rooms were in a row, den, living room, dining room, kitchen. You had to go through the den, living room and dining room to get to the kitchen. It was sort of choppy but that was the design at the turn of the century.
I live in a straight through townhouse, so we really don’t have an entry, but the builder put a half wall that is to the right when you open the front door – it is kind of ridiculous – I am trying to imagine if it would look better without it, but I’m not sure.
I do like “center hall colonial” entryways, that are pretty popular in Pennsylvania, where you open the front door and you have the stairway and a hallway that leads to the kitchen. Pretty sure this is not good feng shui, but I think it is cozy.
The best strategy we are trying to employ to make our home more inviting is the continual purging of “stuff”, organizing our garage, and trying to stick to a cleaning routine so we will feel more comfortable having people over spontaneously.
Thanks for this post Dr. Julie!
When I was shopping for the modular home, I learned quickly to identify the lay-outs with the best use of space. They won’t have entryways and hallways. Lisa’s comment about turn-of-the-century houses reminded me of my grandmother’s house of that vintage — built like a train with one room leading to the next. Our farmhouse is basically a four-room square. It’s okay with me to have more living space and less hallway.
Kathy Warnock recently posted..INA’S OWN QUIET, POLITELY FREEZING MANNER
We have a small entry that is separated from main living room by a seating bench. It does have good lighting, storage and hooks for everything, mirror and another part of feng shui – indoor water fountain. I am very anal about the first impressions my house gives out. I am forever telling my boys to put their stuff into it’s proper place…..you would think they would learn by now….nope.
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As a Feng Shui expert and author, I can tell you the most important thing about your front door entrance is that it is clear of clutter and darkness. Most homes today are less formal and thus have no formal entry as a way of saving space, but it’s not size that matters…lol as much as it is how “welcoming” the entry is. Love your blog, kudos! Harrah