If so, you’ll be in safe hands with Adamson’s. Got a question, want an idea of price or ready to book your FREE home design visit?
When you’re planning a home renovation, there are some rooms that naturally get all the attention. The kitchen gets carefully designed down to the last cupboard. Bathrooms are planned around storage, lighting and how they’ll work every morning. If you’re extending, you’ll probably spend hours thinking about the new layout.
The hallway? Not so much. It’s often treated as the space that connects all the important rooms rather than an important space in its own right. Then Autumn rolls around. School bags are back. Coats start appearing. There are three pairs of shoes by the door, someone can’t find their keys and you’re attempting to get everyone out of the house without tripping over a backpack.
Suddenly, you notice exactly how well your hallway works.
For most homes, the hallway is a bit of a workhorse. It sees everyone come and go, keys grabbed on the way, shoes kicked off. And yet many hallways are treated as an afterthought in grand scheme of the home renovation. If there isn’t enough storage, all those everyday belongings inevitably end up on the floor, over the banister or migrating into the kitchen. So, if you’re already renovating your home, it’s worth including the hallway in the conversation.
Before thinking about how you’d like your hallway to look, think about what actually needs to live there. Coats. Shoes. School bags. Keys. Umbrellas. Dog leads. Sports kits. If the answer to “where does that go?” is currently “wherever there’s room”, you’ve found the problem.
A renovation is a great opportunity to build storage around the things your household actually uses. Awkward alcoves can become fitted cupboards, a bench can hide shoes while providing somewhere to sit, and hooks can keep bags and coats off the floor.
Don’t overlook the space beneath the stairs either. Bespoke cupboards or pull-out drawers can turn an awkward void into genuinely useful storage, without taking any additional space away from your hallway.
Sometimes storage isn’t the only problem. A narrow entrance, badly positioned doorway or poor flow into the rest of the house can make the hallway feel chaotic before you’ve even added coats and shoes. If you’re already making changes to your ground floor, consider the hallway as part of the overall layout. Moving a doorway, opening up a cramped entrance or changing how the hallway connects with adjoining rooms could make arriving home and getting out of the door noticeably easier.
A good hallway isn’t only about cupboards. It’s one of the hardest-working areas of the house, so your choice of materials matters.
Durable, easy-to-clean flooring is invaluable when muddy shoes start coming through the door. Good lighting can completely change a naturally dark entrance, and lighter finishes can help a narrow hallway feel brighter and more spacious. There may also be opportunities to improve natural light through glazed internal doors, rooflights or changes to the surrounding layout as part of a larger renovation.
These aren’t necessarily the exciting decisions you’ll show everyone when they come to see your new kitchen, but they’re the ones you’ll appreciate every single day.
Sometimes there’s only so much you can ask of a hallway. If you’re undertaking a larger renovation, think about where else those everyday practicalities could be accommodated.
A dedicated utility or boot room can give muddy shoes, wet coats, laundry and cleaning products their own home before they reach your main living spaces. Garage conversions and extensions can also create opportunities to introduce the practical storage an existing home is missing. The important thing is to consider these spaces at the design stage rather than finishing your beautiful new renovation and then realising there’s still nowhere to put the school bags.
Your kitchen and bathroom might be the rooms you’re most excited to renovate, and understandably so. But a successful home renovation should make the whole house easier to live in. Your hallway is something you use every single day. If it’s overcrowded, difficult to navigate and constantly full of things you can’t find when you’re already five minutes late, you’ll notice it.
So when you’re planning your renovation, give a little thought to the bit in between all those exciting new rooms. Your future self, trying to get out of the door at 8am on a rainy Monday morning, might be very glad you did.
