Planning

The most important thing to think about when reconfiguring a hallway is “the journey”, says Anna Burles, co-founder of design studio Run for the Hills. “Where do you put your keys, where do you hang your coat, who else do you live with, and how messy are they? It’s about being realistic from the start – you might be happy to put your things away but there will be people in your family who won’t behave like that.” If shoes need to live by the front door, “a big Victorian radiator, which doesn’t have to cost too much and looks very nice, will have quite big gaps underneath where shoes can be tucked away.”

“The area under the stairs in a hallway is also a massively forgotten space,” says Burles, who launched her off-shoot design service Miscellany during the pandemic, to help people to make the most of tricky areas such as this.

For one project, she designed under-stair storage in sections, custom-made by a joiner, with a vintage feel. A cupboard disguising where the electrical lighting system and smart meters reside was put on wheels, so it could be easily pulled out for access to the mechanics behind, and inside it there’s space for the hoover, tools and cleaning paraphernalia. Next to it is a series of drawers – deeper ones for school rucksacks, smaller ones for hats and gloves, and even smaller ones still for scissors, batteries and a first-aid kit. Letter slots above were designed for storing things like homework books and spare birthday cards.

As for non-built-in solutions, a storage bench or low drawer unit that can sit below coat hooks is a good option for storing shoes (try Garden Trading or the Cotswold Company) – keep a basket beside it for any overflow, or as an alternative for children to toss their shoes in.

And on the subject of coat hooks, keeping them evenly spaced along the wall, rather than clustered together, will help to avoid clusters of coats over the winter months. Turner suggests cladding the hallway wall with tongue-and-groove panelling and adding a row of shaker pegs for coats as a smart, practical and cost-effective approach.

Contrasting colour play

Being clever with paint is an easy way to bring a narrow hallway to life, says David Mottershead of paint brand Little Greene. “A hallway can be quirky and fun, in a light, fresh way,” he says. “You can wash out the walls with something relatively easy on the eye, maybe a soft, warm neutral, and then you can add in a fine stripe along the top of the skirting with a bold hue that links to a stair carpet or an artwork (it’s a bit like a trim, which you can paint yourself by applying a line of masking tape as a guide about an inch or two above the skirting). It instantly puts a smile on people’s faces when they come through the door.”

Choosing a dark paint colour can make a narrow space feel bigger, says Heuman: “I actually often think that if you have a small space, if it’s darker, it’s almost like the walls move backwards in a way, making it feel a bit bigger and richer and adds depth to it.”

Colour drenching is also a hot trend at the moment, and can also give the illusion of more space. “If you paint all walls and ceiling in the same colour, the space becomes less defined so your eye doesn’t get pulled away down to the dark corner at the end of the hallway,” says Mottershead.

Powerful pattern

For a narrow hallway in a London house, interior designer and hotelier Kit Kemp (kitkemp.com) lined all the walls with Pierre Frey’s “Sirenes” linen, in a bright buttercup yellow, “to make it feel like springtime all year round”. “It’s important to make a real entrance for when you come in the front door – these in-between spaces are the ones where you can actually make your house feel bigger by making them feel like a room in themselves,” she says. “Pattern sets a mood and creates an experience, drawing you through to other rooms in the house.” Her secret is to also hide electrical boxes and coat cupboards behind jib doors, covered in the same paint colour or pattern as the walls, “so that you lose them into the wall, making the space feel more seamless”. Kemp’s other trick for using larger-scaled pattern in a hallway is to line the wall above the dado rail up to the ceiling or cornice height with a print, and then paint below. “I do think pattern makes a hallway feel more desirable than just two painted colours you almost don’t notice,” she says.

Painting the newel posts of the staircase bannister in a slightly different colour can also lend interest. Pattern works on the floor too, creating a visual pathway that draws the eye to connecting rooms – for her new rug collection with Annie Selke (available via kitkemp.com and andrewmartin.co.uk), Kemp has designed rugs and runners such as the stripey “Always Greener” and “Sooner than Later” made from recycled P.E.T. “It feels like wool but it’s as strong as iron,” she says, making the rugs ideal for heavy-traffic hallways, especially those in households with children and pets.

Georgina Cave of Cave Interiors agrees that pattern doesn’t have to be limited to just a bedroom or dining room. “Very often we do panelling – incorporating traditional wainscot panelling at low level so you can play with two-toned colour; for example, darker at the bottom (to disguise scuff marks more easily) and lighter at the top,” she says. She also suggests bringing in pattern by lining the walls with a textured wallcovering from Lincrusta.

Get running

During the pandemic, Alternative Flooring saw a massive resurgence in hallway runners, says its creative director Lorna Haigh.

“It can be a very easy and affordable style fix to lay a new runner, compared with the cost of carpeting a full room, and it creates maximum impact,” she says. “A runner can also make a hallway look more expansive, as the eye is drawn along its length, especially if it has a pattern or a stripe.”

While neutrals and stripes continue to be popular, Alternative Flooring recently introduced vivid “dolly mixture” brights to its range of cotton borders, allowing a splash of hot pink or lime green edging to jazz up a simple sisal herringbone runner.