/ Published in Flooring Advice

How to energise your neglected hallway

In some homes the hallway is simply a dull cluttered thoroughfare that is only useful for moving from room to room.

But so many people are realising that a lovely hall can add so much to their home. A nice hall can make a house easier to sell and will make it as much of a pleasure to use as the rest of the house is.

Some good news!

If you have a hallway that is too dark, too narrow and too messy, the good news is that there are lots of things that you can do to make it a lot less uninviting.

Now, you do not need to be an interior design or DIY expert to make the right changes to your hall. You simply need a few great ideas and a determination to follow them through.

Great interior design ideas for your hall

We have tried to keep things as simple as possible and you will be pleased to hear that you won’t need to turn your home into a building site to achieve great results. Furthermore, many of the items you require may be found elsewhere in your home so these suggestions won’t require an enormous budget, either.

Here are our seven top interior design tips that anyone can follow to energise their hallway and turn even the most uninviting hallways into the best room in the house!:

  1. Add some furniture – a long empty hallway can be livened up with a well sited table, bench or a coat rack. If your budget doesn’t stretch to new furniture why not buy second hand and up-cycle them;
  2. Bright neutral colours – sometimes something as simple as a fresh coat of paint is all that is required to create a bright vibrant and attractive hallway. Neutral colours work best. Consider white, off-white to lift the mood and remove the gloom;
  3. Attractive lighting – the right sort of lighting can work wonders for a dull and dingy hallway. Use ceiling lights to illuminate your hall or use wall mounted lighting it to draw attention to features in your hallway such as photographs or ornaments;
  4. De-clutter – a cluttered hallway can make even the brightest thoroughfare look like an obstacle course. De-clutter by adding coat hooks, shelving, places for shoes, hats and gloves and make clutter a thing of the past;
  5. Flooring – cover up unsightly flooring simply and easily by using a bright vibrant carpet runner. These are relatively inexpensive and look great whether they are placed over floorboards, polished wood or tiled hallway floors;
  6. Dark passageways – many darker hallways can be brightened up considerably with little more than a few strategically placed mirrors which reflects sunlight deep into the hall and illuminates even the darkest, dingiest corners;

You will find that one solution alone may be insufficient to solve the problem and that a combination of these ideas will be more effective in the long term. So for example where you have a long narrow hall you may want to consider breaking it into two or three zones; perhaps one for artwork, one as a photo gallery and one for hats coats etc. You may even wish to experiment with different floor coverings and lighting for each other zones bringing vibrancy and excitement to something that was dull, plain and utilitarian.