A long, narrow hallway can be a decorating challenge. A dark, narrow hallway is a decorating challenge and one that needs a well-thought-out plan. To make it look bigger, it has to be made brighter by using light colors, lighting, mirror groupings and wall decor to your advantage. This do-it-yourself rescue can be done both inexpensively and without enlisting the help of a professional. Measure Measure the length, width and height of the hallway. If you are painting the floors, add that square footage to your measurements for estimating your painting needs. Adding floor and ceiling molding is a linear measurement that should also be noted. Color Paint the walls and ceiling a light, semigloss color to reflect and move light around. You don’t have to choose white to create a bigger feeling. Using a very light shade of one of your decorating colors works well. If you can, paint the floor as well. Baseboards and ceiling moldings should be semigloss or glossy white to increase the visual space.

Trim Avoid the “bowling alley” feeling of your hallway by attaching wainscoting to the bottom portion of the walls. Paint it several shades darker than the color of choice for your walls. Add a chair rail painted one shade darker than the wainscoting. The colors, while different, blend without creating diversions and increase the interest in the hallway. Lighting Run a track for lighting on the ceiling. You can choose from a variety of lighting options to use on the track, from spotlights to pin lights in decorative colors. Adding a dramatic wall sconce attracts the eye, and an elegant or bold chandelier makes a decorating statement that ignores the dimensions of the room. Install a dimmer to transition the light. Flooring If you cannot change the color of your floors, use a light runner to add color and expand the space. Don't be afraid of using a runner with a pattern, as long as the background is light. Placing two runners, lengthwise on the floor and both in the same pattern, will work if the hallway is extraordinarily long.

Wall Decor Keep to a theme with your wall art. round chair cushions amazonFrame and mat black and white photos with a white mat and use a black frame for a stark contrast. high chair cushion nzOther artwork should be in lighter colors. bean bag chairs and sofasHang a long mirror horizontally to enlarge the space visually, or choose a collection of mirrors all framed in the same color but in different shapes. big joe chair went flatHang them as a collage. dentist chair for sale cape townIf there’s a wall at the end of your hallway, hang a large painting, print or tapestry to create a feature.used dining chairs atlanta

References Your Decorating Hotline: 10 Hallway Decorating Ideas Home Design Find: Design Dilemma: Confronting a Narrow Hallway CTV News: Karl Lohnes’ Q and A On Decorating a Long, Narrow Hallway Photo Credits Thomas Northcut/Photodisc/Getty Images IPC® Door + Wall Protection > Chair Rails Door + Wall Protection Don't let chairs in your lobby and office areas scuff, scratch or dent your walls, provide superior protection to these heavy traffic areas with chair rails! Choose from contemporary and traditional chair rail styles in standard 12' lengths to minimize seams. CR12 Northern Hardwoods™ Real Wood Chair Rail CR2 Northern Hardwoods Chair Rail CR1 Northern Hardwoods Chair Rail CR3 Northern Hardwoods Chair Rail I’d love to see a post on how to decorate a dark, long boring hallway. What to do to keep it from looking like a hotel corridor? Most of my Dear Laurel letters are fictitious but this one is not. So, if you are interested in getting help for something and want free advice, you might take the approach that Kate did.

I can’t promise that I’ll write a post about it, but it’s worth a try. Hotel Corridor made me laugh. Kate’s hall is more like this. It’s a nice start with the sea grass rug. I prefer runners over wall to wall and there should be at least a 3 inch margin of wood but probably not more than 6″ for a narrow hallway. We’re all not so fortunate to have exquisite, wide architecturally beautiful hallways such as this. One of Kate’s halls is 50 feet long. These are basement halls so maybe not as important as the main living areas, but no matter. The narrowest hallway is going to be only three feet wide. That’s the limit on acceptability from a code standard. Quite frankly, for a very long corridor, I think it’s really bad design. I really feel that most halls should be at least four feet wide and preferably five feet or more. However, let’s begin with the worst case scenario. A perfectly plain, no doors or windows, 50 foot long, 3-feet wide hallway.

On the other side of this insanely cramped, spooky sliver of a pathway lies another room. Can we borrow space from either of those rooms? No, Laurel, we can’t afford it. We’re moving in 5 years or less…But if you can swing it, that would be my first consideration. However, let’s work with the suppurating, suffocating hallway. We need to take a lot of the same principles that we find in our gorgeous wide hallway and use them here, but judiciously, of course. You know me if you’ve been reading this blog for a while. I’m a nutjob about architectural features–because that is the key to creating a beautiful interior. We can add some sort of wainscoting, be it picture frame moulding, rail and stile or the very popular board and batten which is like rail and stile only plainer. Assuming that we don’t have a very high ceiling, I would not go up more than 36″ with wainscotting with a chair-rail. Otherwise, it might feel somewhat overwhelming. Here, we have a panel above the wainscoting which is very pretty and helps break up the wall nicely.

We can also break up this long expanse and create more of what isn’t there. We could add one-inch pilasters (engaged columns) to help break up the expanse. Please see the example below. Image from a Real Estate Listing We can add windows and/or doors, with or without mirrors, but mirrors will help expand the space a lot.We had them in our old home and I loved them. You could even have it electrically rigged up to shine a dim light behind them so that they look more like real windows. I would probably use frosted glass, however. It depends on what’s on the other side. There also might be enough direct sunlight. Chloe Warner via Domaine- Designer, Redmond Aldrich We could add a soffit to create a sort of doorway. If the hall is only 3 feet wide, we can only afford to lose an inch or two on each side but that’s enough to create the effect of stopping the eye from moving down a long, never-ending expanse of sameness. via: Red Clay Soul – Designer, Melanie Davis

photo: Emily Jenkins Followill I love this idea of using a transom window instead of the soffit. (the rest of the home is just as stunning if you click on the Red Clay Soul link) We could also create shallow between the stud cabinetry to mimic a doorway like we were talking about recently with our unkitchens. How fabulous is this hidden storage. We could do this anywhere! We could even put in French Doors, again with frosted glass. Yes, it’s shallow storage, but again, perhaps space can be borrowed from adjacent rooms. However, even if it was a dummy door, it would lend itself to giving the architectural feature needed to make the hallway far less boring. Did you just say that I should put in a door that isn’t an entrance into anything but a stud wall?I’m not saying you need to be putting up fake doors; just presenting it as an option to get the ideas flowing. Perhaps, in some cases, there’s an option to make a real doorway from this side of the hall into the space that has no entrance.

What if the hall butts up against the concrete foundation? Well, there are still studs and the opportunity to do everything we’ve discussed except borrowing space. Yes, those are real windows and doors, but we can create something along these lines. Here, they used beadboard or something like that. I recommend some sort of rug runner to add visual interest. Or, the floor itself could be the visual interest. Having a beautiful floor will take the eye away from the cramped corridor. Love how these antique Oriental creates a smashing focal point. I think the way they handled the art is wonderful too. In a narrow hall, I wouldn’t make a complete gallery wall on both sides. A focal point at the end of the hall is a great idea to draw the eye towards the back. Vertical stripes will only accentuate the length. If you do stripes, they should be horizontal. Above and below by Dash and AlbertHorizontal stripes on the floor. On the wall – NO! Not on a very long narrow hallway.

Not only does it make your guests dizzy and nauseous, it serves only to make the hall seem longer and more narrow! Good thing there’s a bathroom at the end. As I always say. “just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” Painting the door a deeper color drawers the eye to the back, not to the narrow sides. Photo: Jonny Valiant and Joseph St. Pierre for Traditional Home If space allows, books are wonderful in a hall. Love how they tucked in a little desk. Lighting can either be overhead or if not too narrow, sconces are always nice. I would not do sconces in a three-foot hallway because most sconces project at least 4-6 inches or more. Lanterns for a tall ceiling are perfect. So are Moravian Star lights. Well, I’ve always liked them. Can we paint the walls anything other than white or a pale color? Yes, absolutely but… with a very long narrow hall it requires a very deft hand. It’s one scenario where I would advocate for an accent wall.

In so doing it pushes the darker wall over, giving the illusion of a wider hall. I love the addition here of the fresh looking photos framed in white. Dark halls require great lighting and either lots of white accents or colorful accents, unless you are going for something very contemporary and moody. This works because of the sophisticated styling of the home and very high ceilings. This is a Swedish Home and I think that painting the color all the way around is an effective technique. I think with dark colors it is imperative that there be many breaks in the color with art, doors, windows, moulding, etc.  If the hall is wider and shorter, then it doesn’t matter as much. I think this works because the left side is mostly doors and the hallway looks to be about five feet wide. I hope that gave y’all some great ideas for decorating your halls–especially those problematic dark, plain long boring hallways. Did I leave anything out? Do you have some special tips for your difficult hallways?