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How to make a small hallway feel bigger, brighter and more useful
Small hallways can be a total design headache. Transitional spaces are tricky at the best of times – should they complement the rooms they lead into, or stand as spaces in their own right? Add awkward proportions into the mix and a small hallway can easily end up feeling like a leftover space.
Yet our hallways perform one of the most important roles in the house, setting the tone for everything that follows.
The challenge of designing a small hallway lies in its many constraints – you might have lots of doors leading off your hallway that rob you of wall space, you might need storage but your walkway is too narrow to accommodate furniture, or you might need more light, but where do you get that from?
The 13 small hallways below offer solutions to your decorating woes, in ways that are both practical and full of character. And the plus side? With such a small footprint, a warmer welcome is just a few design tweaks away.
Natural light is the greatest asset a small hallway can have, so the priority here has been to let it travel as far as possible – there is little more than a spindly plant blocking its way. Even the use of colour drenching with a creamy warm white that knocks back the walls and ceiling ensures that natural light remains the focus.
Pictured: Whey wall paint at Thorndown Paints
With doors on two sides and the staircase occupying the remaining stretch, the hallway in Ruth Mottershead's Victorian home lacks usable wall space. Design effort has instead been directed to fun colour combinations, with the chequerboard runner contrasting with original reddish quarry tiles and a two-tone paint effect – Little Greene’s Aquamarine on the walls and Ambleside on the panelling.
Very narrow hallways benefit from a clear visual destination. In this cool coastal bungalow, the pink plaster wall with its small but highly contrasted artwork gives the eye somewhere definite to land, drawing attention forward rather than outward to the somewhat claustrophobic dimensions.
This wonderful glossy paint in architect Emily Pun's London hallway has a twofold purpose. Firstly, it will bounce light around much in the way that a large mirror will, and secondly, a gloss or eggshell finish will better withstand the natural wear and tear of such a high-traffic space.
Never let a radiator get in the way of a great design scheme. The clever owners of this colourful terrace house in London have installed a narrow shelf above it that acts as a convenient landing spot for keys and parcels. Draw further focus with a mirror that offers glimpses of an adjoining room.
One for pattern lovers – don't forgo your instincts just because you're working with a small space. Here, interior designer Laura Stephens uses pattern at scale but tethers it all by sticking to a strict palette of four colours – a combination of blue, pink, yellow and burgundy. Note the XL mirror too that creates the illusion of extra space.
Pictured: Skye Runner in Saffron & Berry by Bombay Sprout x Laura Stephens. Hallway design by Laura Stephens
Sight lines can determine how spacious a hallway feels – giving the eye somewhere to travel beyond the hallway itself can make the whole approach feel longer and lighter. Here, the arch reveals sight of the room beyond, extending the perceived depth of the space. The effect is further enhanced with the long wooden planks on the floor running continuously throughout.
Pictured: Buttered Toast Bristol Tectonic® Oak 11 from the House Nine Collection, Chaunceys Timber Flooring. Hallway designed by House Nine Design
If you are hesitant to spend too much transforming your small hallway, take your cues from this hotel-inspired hallway makeover in London. The totally DIY overhaul including the stained floors, wall panelling and stair runner came to just £1,199.
Built-in storage is always a good idea. In this east London renovation, design studio Golden have created a floor-to-ceiling cupboard for coats and a perch to sit on while putting on shoes. The cane panels keep the cabinetry visually light, which is always important in small spaces.
Pictured: Hallway designed by Golden
If the architecture of your hallway has given you lots of awkward angles and features, colour can be unifying. Here, confident green has been carried across the balustrade, doors, skirting board and loft hatch tying together several elements that might otherwise feel disjointed. Repeating your colour in this way creates continuity along the length of the hallway.
The empty space above a door is both handy and woefully underutilised. In this Victorian home in Manchester, the long shelf turns dead space into storage for books and decorative bits and pieces without interfering with movement below. The glazed door performs a second important role, allowing light from the adjoining room to spill into the hallway.
Modern design convention would have this light-starved hallway dowsed in brightening whites, but embracing a lack of light can often be more effective than fighting it. The rich tone – Railings by Farrow & Ball – used in this 70s-inspired home in Richmond sharpens the impact of the artwork, lighting and patterned floor too.
Not every hallway has the space for a separate entrance area, but paint can create one visually. Here, the saturated blue wraps the front door, floor and surrounding walls, defining the threshold and providing a sense of structure that the architecture doesn’t allow.
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