Entryway

An entryway print is seen differently from every other print in a house: in motion, from about a metre (3 ft) away, for two seconds, usually while someone is pulling on a shoe. That rules out fine detail, and it rules out anything that needs reading. The thirteen prints on this page are almost all botanical — eucalyptus sprigs and leaves in navy, black and white, beige and sage, a few grandmillennial hydrangeas, a sage stripe set and one “Home Sweet Home” — which is the right register for a wall you pass rather than sit in front of.

Narrow is the other constraint. Entry walls are interrupted by a door frame, a light switch, a coat rail or a console, so the usable space is often a column 30 to 40 cm (12 to 16 in) wide rather than a broad rectangle. Sets of two and three hung vertically fit that column; one large landscape print usually does not. All watercolour, printed to order on heavy matte paper and shipped unframed, in seven sizes from 5x7 in (12.7 x 17.8 cm) to 16x20 in (40.6 x 50.8 cm).

How high should art hang by the front door?

Centre it at roughly 145 cm (57 in) from the floor, as anywhere else — but if a console or bench sits below, measure from the furniture instead and leave 20 to 25 cm (8 to 10 in) between its top and the bottom of the frame. Above a coat rail, hang clear of the hooks rather than behind them, or a winter coat covers the art for five months of the year.

What should an entry print share with the rest of the house?

Its colour, not its subject. The entry is the first wall a visitor sees and the last one they remember, so it works best as an introduction to the palette used deeper in — navy if the living room is navy, sage if the bedroom is sage. Two eucalyptus prints here and three further down the hall then read as one decision instead of two.

For the same leaves in other colourways, see the botanical prints and eucalyptus wall art. If the palette you are introducing is a cool one, the blue wall art page holds the navy and indigo versions of most of these sets.