Good morning all. I hope you had a lovely weekend. I'm suffering from empty nest syndrome since my two sons left last week for 10 days' holiday in Ibiza (the younger one will return to Sydney directly from Spain). 

Those of you who have followed my blog have seen me bang on about having a ta-dah moment when you open your front door.  Well, I'm going to bang on about it again!  It's so important to create a wow factor that greets and invites you to come in and see more and a stair runner (if you have a set of stairs in the entrance) is a great way to create an impact.

I always invite my clients to visit my own home to hopefully inspire them on introducing colour in their homes, styling rooms, maximising a very small amount of outdoor space, using flowers in the home to create an impact etc etc.  And let's not forget how to create a ta-dah moment on entering the home.  My entrance (in the photo above) used to be very bland and boring with wall-to-wall carpet and was pretty underwhelming. So I decided I needed to create something to entice my visitors in with a "wow"!  I bought three very old Peruvian handmade rugs which I knew would be perfect for a stair runner.  Each rug comprised two pieces which were hand-sewn together.  I found a wonderful chap whose workshop unpicked each rug to create six pieces and then sewed seams down each side so that each piece was the same width. I came up with a design and then he laid it exactly to my spec.  The flooring in the entrance way is a piece of wall-to-wall coir matting which was cut to the exact shape of the floor and just sits on the floorboards.  

I've recently completed projects in two houses which included ground floor rooms and entrances. Both clients visited my home and were encouraged to create a ta-dah moment in their entrances by adding a stair runner to their stairs.  Both now have had fab stair runners installed by Roger Oates which is my favourite company to use for stair runners.  They are a traditional British company that has been designing and hand producing their beautiful pure wool Venetian Flatweave rugs and runners for over 20 years. Their selection of colours and designs is second to none.

The first client has an Edwardian home in Balham, London, and they basically re-did their whole ground floor. The separate kitchen and dining room were knocked through to create a large kitchen/diner.  The black & white floor tiles in the entrance were the original Edwardian tiles but they decided to replace them with re-engineered oak flooring in all of the ground floor to create a feeling of flow throughout.  We chose a Roger Oates predominantly green stair runner with borders (Avon Olive) to complement the kitchen units which are a sort of grey/green colour.  The runner is only on the first flight of stairs where it joins the wall-to-wall carpet on the landing and upwards.  As you can see from the before and after photos, the entrance definitely has a ta-dah factor now and makes you want to come in.

The second client purchased their large Victorian house about six months ago and the entrance floor had already been tiled with Fired Earth tiles which have quite a strong pattern with a lot of gold & rust colours and a small amount of black. Such a shame there weren't the original Victorian tiles.  We decided on a Roger Oates predominantly black runner with black & grey borders (Henley Soft Black) to draw the eye away from the tiles to the stairs. The runner is on both fights of stairs but not on the landings which are dark stained wood. The black also works well with the two grey colours on the walls above and below the dado rail. I like the statement that this runner makes in the house; it's a positive bold statement. The family are not afraid of using colour especially if it's a shade of grey or if it's black!

A third client will shortly have a Roger Oates runner installed in their large Victorian three floored home on all the stairs as well as the complementary wall-to-wall carpet on each landing (their floorboards aren't good enough to continue the runner on the landings).   I'll create a blog post of that once it's been installed.

Seeking style inspiration?

If you’re working on your own entrance and wanting to create a ta-dah factor or just looking for some inspiration, please get in touch and see how I can help. Send me a photo of your entrance and let's have a chat.