The hallway is one of the most important areas of your home. The first impressions of your home are made as someone enters the hallway. All too often halls are used for storage of items to be transported upstairs at a later date, as an overflow for coats and shoes or the walls are used for pictures/shelves/ ornaments no longer required in any of the main rooms of the house. In other words, many halls are filled with clutter.
Take a fresh look at your hall, for example, if you were trying to sell your property – would it be viewed as an attractive, clean and bright area? Psychologically, when you have finished work and enter your hallway, it can be extremely uplifting to see a bright, clear and ordered entrance to your personal space.
Use storage boxes if it is filled with items you cannot bear to part with and remove all of them in order to assess the situation. If you do not want to spend too much money on a fresh look, think of adding a coat of emulsion to the walls – if the original surface is suitable. See Water based paint for further details. Perhaps a thorough wash of the doors and paintwork will help. Is it time the woodwork was re-varnished or re-painted? (See Painting).
So far the ideas mentioned are the usual ways of improving any area of the house. However, sometimes a very different approach is required. How much natural light enters the hall? Is it always a dark area, where you reach for the light switch when entering? Have you ever thought of adding a mirror to catch more light or changing the doors? External doors obviously require security features and can be expensive to replace. Internal doors are relatively cheap and easier to deal with. See Fitting a new internal door for further details.
