Appropriately sized stripes can add flow and organization to any space.

Here are a couple ideas.

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Is there a closet door to the left of the entryway?

To the left is the garage entry. Across is the hallway to the kitchen and dinning room and stairs that leads to the bedrooms.

Find a nice little rug to wipe your feet on, and hang some sort of a picture on the wall above the heater. Other than that, you don't have room to do much else.

Hang the coats in the closet when you take them off. Put your mail and keys in the kitchen or whereever you have a countertop and table. Put your shoes in either the coat closet or the bedroom closet. Keeping that small of an area looking neat is more a matter of housekeeping than design.

since you have sidelights that are panels below waist, you could put a small console table next to the door to hold things. if you're handy, you could see about getting upper cabinets (since they're thinner), building a toe-kick for them, and putting a counter on top of them so that you have a small builtin table with storage. wrap your baseboards around the toe to make it look on purpose.
the trick is that you'll need to match the door style, and fully cover the 1 sidelight bottom.

so you'll remove the door and base moulding on that side, build in your cabinet, add your counter, and then add back in your basemould and cut your door trim to size and rehang it.

i think that as long as you cover the inset panel on the sidelight, you'll be fine, style-wise.
you want it to look like it was put there on purpose, at the time the house was built, not as the afterthought that it's going to be.

the other part to consider, though, is making sure you have enough walking space between the corner of the new cabinet and the stair.
mark it out with painter's tape or taped together boxes to make sure it's something that can be done.

you'll also need to look at relocating that heater.


if that's not possible, the console table is the way you want to go, as it won't block the heater at all.
you could always add a floating shelf there as a small drop zone.

This looks a lot like my daughter's townhouse entry.. If I were you, I'd hang a vertical mirror on that wall, not just because it's nice to have a last look at yourself before going out, but also because a mirror would help this small space look more open. If it's a "special" mirror, it would also make a nice design statement as you enter. Under the mirror you could put a skinny table that wouldn't block the heat or doorway, maybe even with a drawer to keep keys

You could mount a small, narrow shelf on the wall below the switch plate. That would give you a place to drop keys and mail. I would add a mirror or artwork above to tie it together. Also, a small entry rug (don't forget a non skid pad underneath!) will give the space definition, as well as provide a place for people to remove shoe and boots.

Ikea sells several shoe storage cabinets that hang on the wall...very thin...between 6" - 8" deep, 2' wide and 3' high. Buy 3-4 of those, hang the first one above that heater and then hang the rest next to it running down the hall towards the kitchen. The top surfaces of these are useful for keys. You could get clever and have outlets installed on the wall behind an upper bin and keep cables and chargers there instead of shoes. Some of the bins could be used for sweaters, gloves, scarves and windbreakers that don't need hangers.
Then take care of the mail by hanging a few wall-mounted paper trays on the wall above the shoe cabinets.
Neat, clean, out of sight, and organized for $100 - $300.

Don't forget to finish it off with a ceiling medallion! Decorative molding can make a huge impact for a small price. http://gustoandgrace.wordpress.com/2014/01/17/a-quick-easy-inexpensive-entryway-update/

Is there something under the stairs? Can you put a closet there?

Linda has the ticket....the ikea shoe cabinet is awesome. My daughter has it. Comes in white too, if you don't like the brown. Add a floating shelf above it with key hooks underneath. I would then add a framed mirror above it.
Look at runners.........you could probably find a shorter one that could go across your entry.
To do some of this, you may have to move your electrical switches further to the left near trim, but that's not a big deal. It may be worth it.