Is your hallway a beautiful calm entrance onto your home or a chaotic mess of bags, shoes and worn floors? Ours is somewhere in between. We have well worn wooden floors and there are usually numerous bags and shoes scattered around. I would love a clean, sleek, almost empty hallway to welcome people into our home, at the moment I feel it’s just a sign of the chaos that surrounds the rest of the house! In an ideal world I would completely replace the wooden floor with something lighter and buy a storage solution designed to fit the space perfectly. However, time and money mean that’s not an option so here are my top tips for refreshing a hallway without spending a fortune.
Top tips for Refreshing a Hallway
Refresh the floors
Our once beautiful engineered wood flooring is looking a little worse for wear in places, so step one of the great hallway refresh is to sand it down a little and polish it again. I’m hoping that will get rid of the marks and leave the floor looking new again.
If you have carpet, hire a carpet cleaner and give it a good clean, you’ll be surprised what a difference clean carpets make or consider switching to wooden floors. Our wooden floors are now 10 years old and although they need a bit of care to look amazing again, carpet would definitely not have fared so well over that amount of time. A wooden floor might not be as expensive as you think, there are some great quality laminate options available these days too. Just remember laminate floors are harder to repair than hardwood. A big benefit of hardwood and engineered wood floors (https://www.floorsdirectltd.co.uk/engineered-wood-flooring.html) is that they can be sanded down and refinished, which you cannot do with a laminate floor. A high quality engineered wooden floor will last far longer than laminate, but as with most things it’s all about how much money you want to spend. Laminate is generally the cheaper option.
Add some light
If you’ve got the budget a sparkly chandelier would be perfect. Decorate the walls with light colours and if you ever replace the front door consider one with a window. Try not to use dark curtains if you need to cover a window. A light coloured blind or shutters make a great alternative to heavy curtains and let in a lot of light.
Get rid of the clutter
Look for a space saving unit to store shoes, bags and coats. If everything is out of sight the hallway will seem more spacious. Try to avoid leaving clutter on surfaces, storage with a drawer for keys and post would be ideal. Why not take the opportunity to declutter the whole houseat the same time!
If you have a small hallway consider open storage, with coloured coat hooks and boxes to store bags and shoes.
Add some colour
A colourful runner adds character and a bit of fun to a hallway as well as protecting the floor from some of the heavy traffic.
Choosing a feature wall adds a bit of sparkle to a hallway too, try some brightly coloured wallpaper and matching accessories along one wall.
Another way to add a hint of colour is to create a two tone look. Try a darker shade on the bottom half and a lighter colour on the top half.
Make it a photo gallery
Brighten up the walls with photos or wall art, but remember to choose bright colours! If the hallway is upstairs you could even add some bookshelves to the wall.
Just get started!
If you struggle to find the time to get things done, split the task into small steps, you could even try a task list app and improve the space a little bit everyday. After a few weeks you should have an amazing ( and useful ) hallway to welcome people into your home. I know a tidy hallway would definitely make me smile.
Which rooms in your house need a refresh?
Post in collaboration with Floors Direct Ltd
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