Left: Our entry at home in our 1940s seaside timber cottage. Right: It’s narrow and tight space and I yearned to make it look and feel beautiful with the addition of artwork.
My entry was my most popular room reveal last year. Which totally makes sense, as we all have entries to our homes and they can be challenging to get right.
I was guided by my emotions when I selected ‘Dawn’ for the entry wall at home and that’s what I recommend you do too, listen to your emotions.
Whenever I’m asked which prints to add to a home’s entry I always ask the collector ‘How do you want to feel?’. So I asked myself the same question… ‘Kara, how do you want to feel?’ – when I come home I want to feel calm. Fighting traffic and carrying the craziness of life is exhausting, so by the time I get home I just want to walk through the door, let my guard down, embrace my family and feel calm.
Left: The space now feels so layered and calm, it’s such a wonderful feeling to walk in each day. Right: The scale of the extra large print was perfect to blanket the wall with calmness.
‘Dawn’ is easily my most calm print. I find seascapes have a way of setting such a calm tone within the home. What I love about the narrative of this print is that the vista could be anywhere. It’s not where I live, it’s not our local beach, but that doesn’t matter. It’s an anonymous horizon of sea and mist, and all its raw beauty. I could stare at it for hours.
Size wise I wanted the largest size (this piece is 66 x 44″ / 167 x 111cm). that would fit over the oak console beneath it. I wasn’t interested in any other sizes, as our entry is tight and narrow and I knew my extra large size would give me the most impact and ‘open up’ the small space, while achieving the sense of calm I craved.
Left: I love having a small handful of sentimental objects on the console to catch my eye as I walk through the space. Right: It’s such a joyful first impression of our home as soon as you open the door.
Entries are notorious for collecting clutter and junk, so the objects in my entry are kept simple. An oak console, a small framed family photograph, candles in glass hurricanes and flowers. Having a sweeping statement of an extra large scale print over the simple styling on the console helps to detour the daily life clutter, making sure no clutter lands here.
But what makes this room sing and sets its calm atmosphere is the artwork, the fine art print, ‘Dawn’.
I’m over the moon with how it turned out. It has completely changed the space and surprisingly the paint colour brings out such beautiful soft tones I hadn’t seen before in the print.
When I look at this space now it feels finished and complete. Which makes me feel really happy. Looking back it was so empty and lifeless. Adding ‘Dawn’ to the entry, which spills over to the sitting room, has made the room feel really elevated, artful and cosy.
