Olive & Barr – Boot/Utility Room
I should have written this post a long time ago as I have been in search of hallway ideas to transform my hallway into a stylish and inviting space for well over a decade. Hallways are so much more important than we realise. They aren’t just the functional passageway from the front door into the main home. They are the first thing we see when we enter the home. They should provide us with a warm welcome, an inviting ambience and a feeling of sanctuary.
As far as spaces go, the hallway is a caregiver. It should allow you to offload the baggage that you have carried around outside the home, both literally and figuratively. It should provide a space for you to safely disrobe and leave your important belongings that have travelled with you. It should give you a sense of home, of belonging and of relief. It should feel like the quiet calm after the storm of your busy day.
Your hallway is the first part of your home that you see each day when you walk through the front door. It is the first impression that your guests receive when they come to visit you. It sets the tone for our entire home. We often underestimate the effect that the hallway can have on our mental health and well-being. According to feng shui, the entrance to our home is an essential tool for making our lives flow.
If we treat our hallway as a dumping ground and it becomes cluttered and difficult to navigate this can leave us feeling stressed, anxious and even depressed. Unlike other rooms, we often can’t simply shut the door and not lock at that clutter. We have to walk through the hallway each time we want to enter or leave the house. And when our guests have to walk through it, it doesn’t leave a very inviting or welcoming impression.
But with a little bit of care, thought and planning, we can quickly transform the hallway into a stylish and inviting space that not only looks and feels good, but is functional too and leaves the right impression on us and our visitors.
So let’s take a look at some hallway ideas to give you some inspiration and to help you create a hallway that says “Welcome home”. Whether you are looking for simple hallway makeover ideas, more in-depth hallway renovation ideas, narrow hallway design ideas or small hallway inspiration, these tips and tricks will help you to create a soothing sanctuary that meets your needs, sparks joy and welcomes your guests and creates flow.
Built-in Hallway Storage
Olive & Barr – Boot/Utility Room
If your hallway is large enough and you have the budget, it is always a good idea to look into creating some kind of custom-built storage solution. Built-in storage can be made bespoke for the space intended and is therefore very efficient when it comes to making the best use of the available space.
It can also be catered exactly to the needs of you and your family. You can design the exact solutions that you think you will need in a way that allows you to maximise the space that you have. Built-in storage is integrated seamlessly into the fabric of your home and allows you to upgrade your organisational effectiveness. You can design the storage around the belongings rather than trying to find a storage solution that will house them.
Built-in storage allows you to make the most of awkward corners or angles as it can be designed and built to take these quirks into account. It can also be designed and built to match the style or period of your home so that it doesn’t jar aesthetically.
The beauty of built-in hallway storage is that you can also design it in such a way that everything is behind doors and hidden and can practically disappear into the wall if you prefer a more minimal, streamlined look. Or you can make sure that some shelves or hooks are open and exposed making it easy to see what is stored and have it easily accessible for when you need it. This is totally down to personal preferences and can be specified at the design stage.
It can be a great hallway idea to make sure that you incorporate some kind of seating into your built-in storage. his gives you somewhere to comfortably sit while you put on and remove your shoes. This could be particularly useful as we get older but could also be useful for families with young children where the parents often have to help them get ready to leave the house.
Obviously, the seating will be more comfortable if you add a padded seat cushion. It might be a good idea to make sure this is easy to wash if necessary. Either make sure the whole thing can be washed or at the very least that there is a removable cover. Hallways may be the caregiver but they often undergo a lot of water and tear due to the amount of traffic that passes through the hallway each day.
Naturewall, SlatWall Waterproof Walnut
Built-in storage allows you to plan exactly how you will use the space. Hooks have enough clearance for coats. Shelves can be made to accommodate hats or storage baskets for all your winter woolies or summer caps. The bench can be fitted at a height that will allow for wellies beneath if necessary. Everything can be customised for your exact needs.
Olive & Barr – Boot/Utility Room
Having everything behind doors also gives a much more minimal feel to the space and allows for you to hide away any unsightly clutter. This is always good for families or homes where more people live and therefore more stuff is needed. If you live alone and are more of a tidy person, having open storage won’t be such an issue.
Sharps Shaker Boot Room In Willow Green
Open shelves also allow you to carefully curate what you have out on display. You can use this as an opportunity to create your own little gallery of items that you love or simply store things that you want to have to hand and be easily accessible. Obviously it looks a lot nicer if you don’t have tatty old stuff out on display.
Olive & Barr – Boot/Utility Room
Statement flooring
Baked Tile Co, Waterlily
The flooring that you choose to have in your hallway can make a huge impact on the overall feel of the space. Whether you want it to feel calming and serene, or to make more of a maximalist statement, the flooring will really help you to set the mood.
Floor tiles are a great way to add colour and pattern to the hallway. They work really well when it comes to narrow hallway design ideas because they can help to make a narrow space feel wider depending on the pattern that you choose. You should also consider the size of the tiles you choose. Larger format tiles will make the space feel larger, whereas smaller tiles may make it feel even smaller.
Smaller patterns can make a space feel busier whereas larger patterns tend to feel a little calmer. Either way floor tiles are great for hallway makeover ideas. They are easy to care for and to clean so they are low maintenance. They come in a multitude of colours, patterns, shapes and sizes so you really can find exactly the solution you are seeking to create the perfect look and feel for your hallway.
Bert & May Coarse Terrazzo Tile from Hyperion Tiles
Left: Ledbury Marina Blue Pattern Tiles from Walls and Floors | Right: Scintilla Sapphire Star Pattern Tiles from Walls and Floors
If floor tiles don’t really appeal when it comes to hallway ideas and you’d rather opt for plain wooden flooring or polished concrete for example, you can always add interest by choosing a statement runner or rug. If you are big fan of colour, choosing something bold and bright for your hallway could help to bring the drama.
Statement rugs or runners instantly attract attention, draw your eye further into the hallway and give a really impression of the people who live in this home and what they are like. Also, the more of yourself and your family you put into your flooring choice, the happier you will feel when you step into your hallway because it expresses who you are and how you feel.
Left: Sonya Winner Rug Studio, Chromatic Pixels Runner | Right: Sonya Winner Rug Studio, Rosie Runner
Medina Tangier Runner from Weaver Green
Hallway Mirrors
Using mirrors in interiors has so many benefits. When it comes to the hallway, obviously our first thought is checking our appearance before we leave the house. Mirrors obviously come in super handy for this so consider what shape an size you want the mirror to be. Full length mirrors are probably desirable so you can see your whole body, but a large mirror hang on the wall or propped on a table may suffice.
Hallway mirrors are also really useful for amplifying the light in a small or narrow hallway or one that doesn’t get much light. They are a great tool for bouncing light around a dark hallway. You can basically position mirrors to capture all the available natural light that is coming into the space and reflect it back out. Try placing a mirror opposite or adjacent to a window to increase the amount of light captured.
Alternatively, if you have any particularly dark corners in your hallway, you could place a mirror strategically to reflect light back into the space. But this trick can also work with artificial light. Try putting a mirror behind a lamp on a sideboard or console table and the light will be dispersed further into the room thanks to the mirror. The bigger the mirror, the brighter your space will be.
Click Style, Arched Window Wall Mirror
Mirrors will also help to make a small or narrow hallway feel bigger. They can create the illusion of more space thanks to the reflections.
When placed on the largest expanse of wall in a room, they can practically double the space, especially when a large mirror is used. Again placing a mirror on a console table or sideboards can be useful here.
Cuckooland, Benji Mirror with Shelf
Hallway Storage
Hallway Shoe & Coat Storage
For most homes, the hallway is where we keep our coats and shoes so providing storage for this is necessary. We need to make sure that the storage we choose not only meets our needs, but also looks good. If we don’t have the budget for built-in hallway storage, we need to look for other alternatives such as wall-hung solutions or freestanding solutions.
This means we need to think about how much space we have available and how many items of clothing and how many shoes we need to store. If we keep things to a minimum we have far more flexibility with the storage solutions we can use that will still look neat and tidy.
Incorporating some kind of seating into the shoe storage is always a good idea. It makes it more comfortable when putting shoes on and removing them if you can sit down. Again this will depend on the space you have available. In a narrow hallway this may not be possible.
Units that combine coat and shoe storage may be more effective when it comes to spatial planning. Freestanding units that provide shelves, rails and drawers help to maximise the floor space that is taken up and are multifunctional. We do have to make sure not to overload the unit though otherwise, it will start to look messy and cluttered very quickly.
If you can find a unit that incorporates hooks, a bench seat and shoe storage this again maximises the use of space whilst getting the most out of the unit. Keep it simple and only store what you need to here.
VonHaus, Lena Rattan Hallway Storage
Hallway Hooks, Rails & Stands
For particularly small or narrow hallways it may mean that you really don’t have space for anything more than a few hooks. But that’s ok, you can still make a great impression and a big statement with some simple hooks. There are lots of great options on the market so make sure you look around and find something that works for you.
You may be tempted to think that the more hooks the better in a small space but this could be a bad idea. The more hooks there are, the more you will hang which will quickly dominate the space.
Hallway Furniture
Hallway bench
Hallway benches are always a great idea if you have space. Not only can you sit on them but you can also store shoes or bags beneath them. Make sure you opt for something that is the right size for your hallway.
Shelved Hallway Modular Unit