The Best Way to Welcome Spring? Give Your Foyer a Makeover.

It may not feel like spring yet — but it is.

And as the temperature rises, the stuff you bring into and out of your home changes: Instead of heavy coats and snow boots, you’ll need umbrellas and rain boots, and eventually sunglasses and flip-flops.

That means your entryway — whether it’s a foyer, a mudroom or just the space around your front door — needs to change, too.

“Those rooms take a beating, but they’re also your first impression as you come through the door,” said Whittney Parkinson, an interior designer in Indianapolis. “So they have to be functional, but they also need to be beautiful.”

Achieving that balance takes some doing, Ms. Parkinson said, noting that “there are a lot of small, subtle ways to make them very functional, but also high impact.”

Here’s how she and other designers do it.

Move Your Winter Gear

No matter how big your entryway is, storage space is finite.

So as the weather warms up, move space-hogging ski jackets and boots into deep storage: an attic, a co-op apartment’s storage unit or even just bins stashed under the bed.