After you pick out a front door, or any exterior door, do you consider floor mats to protect your home's flooring? Depending on where you live and how much foot traffic (kids) goes through your doors, there are a few solutions to make your entryway a bit more practical.
Depending on where you live, storing foot gear can be as important as a front hall closet, so let's explore these solutions.
- Door mats outside or inside the door, and sometimes both.
- Shoe cubbies or floor mats to store muddy shoes, boots and other outdoor paraphernalia.
- Bench seat to take off those shoes safely.
Exterior Doors and Floor Mats
We don't spend a lot of time looking down at our feet so what motivates homeowners to buy floor mats? Maybe we can learn something from the floor mats in our cars, as they're a more popular add-on you can buy with a new car. They're easier to clean and they protect the floor's carpet, keeping the floor looking new for 5, 10 or more years.
Floor mats used by those entering your house, can capture most of the dirt and save you cleaning time. More important, by preventing dirt from being tracked through your house, it won't get embedded into your hardwood flooring as the cost and mess (sawdust) of having your floors refinished (learn what's involved when refinishing wood floors) is significant.
Floor mats & bench below, found on Pinterest.
Benches & Shoe Cubbies for Wet and Dirty Shoes
Floor mats won't catch all the dirt, so where possible you'd really like people (at least your kids) to take off their muddy foot gear. The best way to motivate people is to give them a chair or bench to sit down and remove their shoes, along with an easy place to store the shoes. There are some beautiful coat, cubbie and bench furniture pieces but they don't always fit the space available.
Don't let this deter you as you (or your local handyman) can build you benches to fit the space available. That's what we did when my boys were small – a short bench allowed them to sit down, store their shoes and boots underneath and step up to hang their jackets on the hooks we installed above the bench.
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