We're hosting our very first holiday party this year and it has us thinking about our home's first impression — the foyer. Not every apartment dweller has a legitimate foyer but we do and it is currently a precarious balance between function (coats, mail, shoes) and formality (art, lighting, furniture). This antique mail cabinet is in our family member's foyer and we love how it addresses both issues in a playful, elegant way...

Their foyer is located off of the kitchen which has little storage so the mailbox cubbies hold everything from wine bottles to tea cups and extra dish towels. We love the combination of the large, antique furniture anchoring the foyer and the storage-on-display immediately stating that the homeowners don't take themselves too seriously. Its warm and real — the perfect first impression for guests during the holiday season.
How do you treat your entryway when guests are on the way?

Comments (17)
omg I love the mail cabinet! I really really really want one...
Zaborski's in Kingston had 1 or 2 of them...last time I was there.
Pottery Barn had them, too. I'm not sure if they still do.
Clever but probably unsanitary. There is no way to measure how many LICKED pieces of mail went through that box. I hope the cleaned it really well.
Licked mail? And touched by hands, too. Good grief.
I like it, but it could use a little variation--all the cubbies look packed.
How are we defining 'elegant' in this context?
i like that a lot--in my dream apartment, there's always been something like this going on; another variation i'd love to see (but love to have even more) would involve an old-school library card catalogue.
That's true Spoiler, it's probably very dangerous to get Aids, or worst, by cups that are stored in a place where, fifty years ago, they use to put LICKED pieces of mail.
How do you deal with the fact of eating out or paying your grocery with bare hands?
(sorry for my poor english...)
Yul, you're english is near perfect, and you also made me smile with your comment :)
@Yul- I hope you don't mean that it's possible to get AIDS this way. First, HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) is not spread through saliva. Second, even if there was breast milk/blood/semen/vaginal secretions (the fluids which it is spread by) on the cabinet, the virus would not even survive on the cabinet for that long! It is NOT a risk factor for aquiring HIV to own a piece of furniture that someone who was HIV owned.
Please do some reading on the subject. It should be really easy to find, especially since today is World AIDS Day.
And... if that wasn't what you meant... my misunderstanding.
@Deidre88 - Yul was being ironic
Dear Troll,
I didn't say anything about AIDS, just that taking any old thing out of the garbage and keeping food or cups in it isn't always such a great idea. Take a look over the counter at your local post office and ask yourself if you would want to eat off that.
Seems that you would.
Thanks for the reply, its always nice to have infants in the comments.
Regardless of how sanitary, it looks beautiful. If that were just a shelf, it would be so easy for everything to appear totally cluttered. Organizing clutter is a tough challenge... we should all be so lucky to find a piece like this to give us a short cut!
Emily
ROTFL
Wood absorbs bacteria and kills them. Wood and metal can be cleaned. Anyway, it's actually good to use your immune system once in a while.
This is awesome. I find it a little odd that one might store teacups in a foyer, but hey, whatever works.
i want one like that sooooooo much!!! i want one for the kitchen and one for the foyer to hold shoes and purses...
btw, are you kidding me with all those used/licked/ and full of bacteria remarks? i hate to burst your bubble, well not really, BUT you do not live in a sanitized sanctuary, the germs and bacteria are EVERYWHERE, so get out your lysol because the mail man is on his way :) furthermore to poke fun at the ocd inflicted here, unless you built your home from scratch, someone else has used all the cabinets and the toilet (oooohhhh) before you, may have even licked a window or a doorknob :) or two lol
Wood absorbs bacteria and kills it? That doesn't sound right to me.
i assumed spoiler was being... a spoiler, and not serious. anyway, i thought it was common knowledge that bacteria does not live very long outside of the moist & 98.5 degrees of a human body. so once that lick dried out, the bacteria on it died.
i like the look but i agree, tea cups and other kitchen items seem odd in a foyer. wouldn't want to live with that clutter but am very happy to spend a few minutes looking at it on my computer screen.