Lobby Love - Celebrating your home's entryway in grand style

Travelers often remark that just stepping into a hotel lobby can bring them joy and change their psyche to a more positive demeanor. An almost wonderous feeling comes over one as they take those first steps into the lobby. These “lobby love” moments are no accident. Hoteliers carefully curate and create lobby experiences to set a tone as well as entice one to stay. A portal to a new world, the lobby declares you have arrived somewhere new! The best lobbies build anticipation – be it for a vacation stay or posh experience – and often create a sense of promise of what’s to come. Guests enter the lobby and ease into a feeling that is both exciting and reassuring. If lobbies can be so impactful in hotel life, how can they impact our home life? Let’s examine this special hotel space to elevate what is an often-overlooked area in our own homes, the entryway.

“You are the clientele of your own home. Do you enjoy crossing the threshold of your own personal entry as much as you do when embarking on a holiday experience? Or have you paid so little attention to your personal entrance that while you walk through it daily (sometimes multiple times a day) you encounter little pleasure at best, or at worst, sheer discontentment?” – Hotels to Home page 25

Hospitality starts curbside so look at your lobby as starting just before the entryway. No sense creating a beautiful lobby area if the actual doorway is displeasing. A worn welcome mat, dusty door, or unsightly piles of rubbish can take away from the peaceful greeting you want to give yourself and others. One fellow traveler shared a story regarding the impact of checking your doorway area on daily living happiness. He loved his entryway area inside the home, but mentioned that when he thought about his doorway, he really disliked how he had to pass his water heater to enter/exit the home. In discussing solutions, he landed on enclosing it with an attractive trellis (rather than taking on the time and expense to relocate the heater). His home improvement idea worked as he removed an eyesore he saw most days. What a creative and relatively cost-effective solution!

Now that you’ve entered the home, think about your home entryway (or entryways if you have one for guests and another for the household) as your personal lobby. Enter those spaces and take a good look around. Take a pulse across all your senses and evaluate your responses– does it represent your home or entice you to stay? Or are there discrepancies? Are you highly organized, but walk into chaos? Perhaps you enjoy splashes of color, but the area is dull and boring. Maybe lighting brings you glimmers of happiness, but when you survey the surrounds, it is rather dark and dismal. In keeping with the philosophy that you are a VIP in your own home, refresh these space(s) so there is continuity between this area and the rest of your home and lifestyle. Ensure you love your lobby!

Designing a beautiful lobby comes down to one word: honor! Everyone (and each household) is distinctive. Just like hotels possess their own characteristics, so do our homes. Your own lobby is the perfect place to honor your personal preferences and showcase your unique way of life. Truly anything goes if it eases your entry and exit into the home. Looking for ideas? Anecdotal stories abound when it comes to Hotels to Home lifestyling in this area. Gorgeous flowers are a common favorite, lobby flower examples are virtually limitless and fresh blooms bring smiles. Upgraded lighting fixtures (Why not add a chandelier or art-deco sconce to dress a typically practical space and show your chic style?), plenty of natural light (people gravitate to large sparkling clean windows – with or without sweeping views), creating a hydration station, as well as adding something cozy to sit on, are just a few examples of what guests have taken from their hotel adventures to upscale everyday home life. Looking for more inspiration? Excavate fond hotel memories or visit new hotel lobbies, chances are you will have fresh ideas aplenty. Honor your personal preferences and soon this space will be one of your favorite rooms in the house!

Many people will take the time and attention to create a wonderful guest entry in their homes, but completely forget their personal entryway. Flip the script on this design scheme and prioritize the personal entry’s architecture and interior design. This space should bubble to the top of a home’s favorite room listing because in most households a personal entry is used exponentially more than the guest entry and has a greater impact on how you live day-to-day. Also remember, if you cohabitate, be sure and explore each household member’s hotel lobby highlights and edit the space accordingly. By giving each person a voice, you get to learn more about them, and everyone gains a pleasing entry/exit encounter. Homelife harmony.

Just like hotels task themselves with creating amazing lobby experiences that entice one to linger longer as well as showcase a sneak peek of what’s to come, give your entryway area(s) great care. This is your own portal to arriving home, into your private sanctum, and a guiding light into your lifestyle.

Welcome home!

The Concierge