The interior of the hallway sets the tone for the overall style of the house and forms the first impression of those crossing its threshold. The rational organization of the entrance area implies not only a carefully thought-out aesthetic component of the interior, but also a functional one. It is important to take into account that the design of a private space in a private household and a city apartment has its own characteristics. The topic of today's conversation: we decorate the hallway beautifully.
What is the difference between a corridor and an entrance hall?
Hallways and corridors are non-residential areas. The hallway is the room that is located immediately behind the main entrance. This is the first place a person enters when crossing the threshold of the front door. Visitors do not stay in the hallway for a long time and, taking off their outerwear here, go further into the apartment.
The corridor is an elongated, rather narrow passage that connects living quarters of different sizes and functional purposes to each other.
Ideas
When drawing up the interior of the hallway, it is important to pay attention to details that can make the atmosphere functional and comfortable to the maximum. Let's find out what design solutions can be used to achieve the desired results:
- The use of a light palette in the background decoration or decoration in gloss are effective ways of illusory expansion of the space, allowing you to visually adjust the proportions of a narrow room.
- Organization of good lighting. You can go in two ways: make combined lighting, supplementing the general light sources with local ones, or limit yourself to high-quality local lighting.
- Visual illusions. Do not neglect the capabilities of mirrors, which, due to their reflective ability, multiply the illumination of the room and visually make it more voluminous.
- Optimizing space with well-chosen furniture.
The interior can be equipped with a variety of elements, including:
- Linear hallways with a carriage coupler. They are suitable for rectangular and square entrance areas.
- Built-in / cabinet sliding wardrobes.
- Dressing rooms.
- Pencil cases. They are distinguished from the standard cabinet by their increased height. There are models 1, 2-fold with a bar, open / closed type, with drawers, shelves and a showcase.
10 pictures
- Hanging hallways. Modular structures are assembled from the desired sections to choose from.
- Swivel hallways. Unusual models in the form of compact modules with a rotary mechanism.
- Furniture transformer. These are models of sectional furniture with extended functionality, which can be stacked vertically or by forming combinations of horizontal side elements.
How to choose?
The complex geometry of the room is a reason to opt for radial wardrobes. In a very narrow room, hinged doors of the storage system will block the passage, so it is better to give preference to a wardrobe with sliding doors or a functional built-in model.
A corner hallway is an ideal solution for a square or elongated room, where it can be placed against adjacent walls. This installation option is not available with cabinet and modular furniture. In hallways with stairs, built-in storage systems are used to organize the understairs space.
Shoes are stored in shoe racks - folding / pull-out shoe chests.
Material
The hallway is equipped mainly with cabinet furniture, which is made from a variety of materials. If earlier body elements were produced only from natural wood, then today chipboard is used with might and main MDF / chipboard … The appearance and durability of the hallways are equally influenced by the composition and coating of the slab. For these purposes, in addition to modern polymers (laminate and melamine), synthetic / natural veneer is used.
Furniture production, of course, did not abandon solid wood, from which mainly elite hallways are made. The most common breeds are oak, beech, maple, pine. Solid oak furniture is reliable and retains its appearance for half a century or more.
Pine products are the most affordable option in terms of cost.
Modern furniture is also made of metal - these are models of forged hangers, shelves, stands. Glass - high strength or Triplex and mirrors, decorative inserts are made. The current trend is hallways with leather upholstery. Furniture, where the door fronts and the back panel for hangers are decorated with natural leather or its artificial analogue - eco-leather, look very stylish and impressive.
Built-in drywall furniture is another practical solution in the hallway. GKL is an affordable, easy to process and install material that is ideal for creating partitions, niches, open shelves and cabinets.
The size
When choosing the size of furniture in the hallway, they are repelled by the dimensions of the entrance area. Very compact premises with a footage of 3-4 sq. meters are found in the housing of the Khrushchev series. In this case, you have to limit yourself to a minimum set of furniture from a hanger and a cabinet in order to accommodate the most necessary things.
Similarly, you have to act when organizing a hallway with a width of 80-90 cm, which, compared to a compact, but wide entrance area, seems very tiny. Here, an alternative to the pencil case can be the installation of a floor-type hanger or a hanger in the form of a crossbar with hooks or a structure in the form of a pedestal with a high back under the hooks.
Wardrobes remain the most convenient option for hallway furniture. The optimal depth of coupé-type structures with a standard boom placement is considered to be 60 cm.… Whereas the ideal option for arranging an elongated entrance zone with an area of 5-6 sq. m will be the installation of a long sliding wardrobe with an end bar from wall to wall, up to a maximum of 40 cm deep. Or along one wall, several shallow pieces of furniture are placed "by height" - a cabinet with a mirror, a couch, a shoe rack with folding shelves and at the end a tall cabinet -pencil case.
For narrow corridors, modular / non-modular models of hallways, 100 and 120 cm wide, are perfect. When arranging a hallway of 7-10 squares (and this is already a small hall), you can use any model of cabinet furniture.
Color
Color options:
- The red palette is truly luxurious, but its beauty can be fully appreciated only in a spacious room. The oversaturation of the interior with red furniture makes the atmosphere cold, depriving it of coziness.
- The green hallway is definitely a good choice. Eye-pleasing and harmonious shades of calm greens can be used as companion colors, as backgrounds or accent colors.
- The blue scale is insanely interesting. Ultramarine background finishes are combined with beige ceilings and furnishings for a luxurious look. Blue forms harmonious pairs with white, beige, straw, gray.
- Interior classics are in brown tones. Popular color solutions for furniture include shades of oak, alder, cherry, apple, walnut, golden chestnut, shimo ash.
- Turquoise - such a palette is amazingly beautiful and charges with a positive. For the hallway, the most successful shade will be a faded green, if it is supplemented with accent colors - red, yellow or green.
- In yellow tones - this option transforms a dark and gloomy room without windows. When using yellow furniture, a calm background finish will help to emphasize the expressiveness of color.
- In beige tones, it is ideal for compact entrance areas. Warm, light shades of beige visually expand the boundaries of small rooms.
- In white color - one of the most popular solutions for furniture in the hallway, thanks to the timeless Scandi design, eco-style, minimalism and modernity.
Fittings
The small area of the hallway creates many inconveniences when drawing up the interior. So, dimensional furniture cannot be placed here with all the desire. The problem is solved by furniture hooks with a variety of designs, which allows them to be used as decor. Metal products can be matte, glossy, semi-antique, structurally - one-, two-, three-, multi-track and differ in the type of fasteners:
- On the screws.
- On glue.
- With suction cups.
- On magnets.
The most reliable option for placing outerwear is on screws, such products are designed for increased loads.
Decor
The decor of the hallway should in every possible way support the style of the interior. Decorative elements often help hide imperfections and disguise finishing errors.
How do I hide the flap?
The presence of an electrical panel in the hallway reduces the effect of the most elegant design solutions, so masking this prosaic object becomes a matter of principle.
To solve this problem, you can:
Equip the swing panel with a beautifully framed mirror
- Decorate the sash with the material from which the hallway is made (laminate, veneer).
- Install a closet or dressing room next to it. Sliding storage doors hide the visor from view without restricting access to the device.
- Decorate the sash with a mosaic or tile pattern.
- Equip the door with a key holder.
What painting to hang?
Decorating a hallway with paintings is always an up-to-date decor option. Designers prefer abstractions, natural landscapes and avant-garde images. In modern hallways, printed images are often found - posters. Their design in the form of a panel looks especially original.
Modular paintings are another opportunity to diversify the interior of the entrance area. The popularity of images formed by several sectors with separate parts of the overall picture is due to their neutrality. You need to try very hard so that the modular picture becomes the cause of the imbalance in the interior.
Living room-hallway
The decor used in the living room, combined with the entrance hall, performs two functions: it decorates the living space and serves as an element of zoning. To unobtrusively mark the visual border between the entrance area and the recreation segment, it is enough to use a half-meter vase, floor sculpture, photo collage or a composition of paintings.
Accessories
Love at first sight can be regarded as anything you like, nevertheless it has been scientifically proven to start feeling sympathy or antipathy for something or someone, 15 seconds are enough for us. After that, we already perceive this something or someone through the prism of first impressions. Therefore, when decorating the hallway, from which acquaintance with the house begins, every detail is important.
What accessories deserve attention:
Wall / floor clock. They can become a catchy accent or, conversely, support the colors of the background finish - everything is decided by the color scheme
- Door mat. In the hallway, you need a pair of carpets - a street model with high barrier properties and an interior rug in the form of a runner.
- The umbrella stand is convenient, practical and beautiful.
- A newspaper rack is such a useful little thing that allows you to neatly store correspondence, and not litter the curbstones with it.
Design projects
Comfortable minimalism remains the favorite of designers. We present several real design projects of entrance zones of different configurations and sizes.
Small room
Very compact entrance areas are found in apartments of the Khrushchev series with a standard layout. The most practical solution is to install a tall pencil case and shallow shelves with pantographs. An alternative option is modules.
Narrow entrance area
Requirements for registration:
- Light background finish.
- Good lighting.
- A minimum of furniture.
- Styles - classic or minimalism.
Interior zoning is an effective way to transform a rectangular hallway or entrance area with irregular geometry and place all the necessary furniture.
The simplest option for delimiting space is to divide into two segments, and you can visually mark the border between them using:
- Color zoning with light shades.
- Diffuse lighting.
- Two types of flooring.
- In a private house. You can use any furniture - wardrobes, corner models or linear models. In this case, the main task is to choose the right finishing materials, since the hallways in private houses or in summer cottages go out onto the backyard territory.
The requirement for materials is moisture resistance. Ideally, on the floor - linoleum, on the walls - water emulsion, hangers and shoe racks - made of stainless steel.
You can dilute the design with a multi-level ceiling with soft diffused lighting. Since the hallways here have windows, there is no need to increase the illumination with powerful lamps.
Hallway-living room
Combining the hallway with the hall implies the dismantling of the doors and the use of arched or rectangular arches in order to optimize the usable area.
Effective zoning methods:
- Multilevel ceiling structures.
- Decorating with decorative stone the opening of the entrance door and the arch from the side of the entrance area.
- Combined floor finish.
Typical mistakes
If we neglect the detailed design of the entrance area, then instead of a comfortable and ergonomic space, the hallway will add to the list of rooms with typical design oversights.
Let's find out what these shortcomings are:
- Insufficient illumination. The absence of windows in the room is a good reason for organizing combined lighting, and not installing a single lamp on a suspension.
- Irrational approach to the choice of materials for decoration. The priority is linoleum, tiles, porcelain stoneware, panels, vinyl wallpaper, and not budget laminate and fabric wallpaper.
- Lack of visual delimitation of the boundaries of the zones of the combined hallway-corridor.
- Equipping a small room with a wardrobe-compartment that “eats up” space.
- Placing mirrors opposite doors. Despite the fact that mirrors are the best helpers in creating optical illusions, placing them in the wrong place can achieve the exact opposite effect and get a gloomy room.
- "Door chaos". The same design of all doors is a prerequisite for a successful design. Other options are not valid.
- Multicolor. Juicy shades are good in moderation, and imbalance in color is a direct path to bad taste.
- Stereotyped thinking. All rooms in the house are worthy of individual design, not just kitchens, bedrooms and living rooms. Carbon-copy design is able to depersonalize the premises.
How to equip?
Arrangement of the hallway implies the allocation of active zones where they will undress, dress, change shoes, store scarves, gloves, umbrellas and auxiliary areas for storing clothes and shoes.
In order to save usable space, it is important to decide on which side to place the furniture … In a narrow room, it is best to place it along the longest wall. Installing a coat rack and cabinet along the long and short adjoining walls is another good solution in terms of functionality and aesthetics.
It is absolutely not profitable to occupy two opposite walls for furniture, since the corners of the cabinets in the resulting passage will impede freedom of movement.
The use of the entire spectrum of well-known techniques, visually correcting the proportions of small spaces: a light color palette, mirror and glossy surfaces, will help to decorate the hallway advantageously. An alternative to a single mirror is to decorate the wall in whole or in part with whole reflective canvases.
It is important that the entrance area is not only comfortable, but also cozy. What do the pieces of upholstered furniture contribute to - poufs, armchairs, if space allows and various types of sofas in the form of banquets, benches, pedestals.
Floor and ceiling decoration
The finishing of high-traffic areas implies the need to use materials that have the ability to withstand moisture, mechanical stress and hassle-free maintenance. Decorative qualities are another important criterion for choosing finishing materials. Let's find out which of them allow you to decorate the hallway simply and tastefully.
Background finishing options:
- Painting.
- Pasting with wallpaper / photo wallpaper.
- Decorative plaster.
- Cladding with panels (wood, MDF, laminated, 3D effect).
- Artificial stone decoration, tiles.
- Frescoes.
- Combined options.
The first two types are the most affordable. In the first case, moisture-resistant interior paints are used, and in the second, vinyl wallpaper or more expensive bamboo products.
Ceiling decoration methods:
- Tensioned structures, which excludes the possibility of using spots.
- Suspended structures with unlimited choice of lighting options.
- Painting.
- Venetian plaster.
Decorative beams and multi-level structures in bright or dark colors are appropriate for spacious rooms with sufficient ceiling height.
Beautiful examples in the interior
The photo gallery contains original design solutions for hallways of different sizes and configurations:
- See how a long narrow corridor can be transformed in an ordinary one-room apartment in a panel house. The most common techniques are used here - light tones of wall decoration, a white ceiling with a plinth, a plaster niche with glass shelves, an accent wall and original lamps.
- Interesting design of the entrance area with non-standard geometry in the spirit of minimalism. Combined flooring, mini hallway with large mirror and glossy ceiling with lighting.
- Pay attention to how advantageous the corner hallway looks in a large room thanks to the spectacular contrasting performance, which is emphasized by the consonant tones of the background decoration. Accent accessories - a pouf and a runner with the same animal print give the design even more expressiveness.
- Elite hallways from an array of valuable species in the halls of country residences. Appreciate the richness of warm natural wood tones and the richness of shades of brown in the wall paneling.
In the next video, you will learn about the design secrets for a small hallway.