How to paint a hallway?

Consistent planning of the decor and colours of the whole house is the basis for success. The same colours, paints and wallpapers will not work in every room. Often the problematic zone is the anteroom - a place already inhabited, but still as if belonging to the outside world. However, the hallway is an area in the house, which is designed to welcome guests and family members, allow them to dress and undress freely, and often store shoes and outer garments.

That's why it's worth focusing on its design a bit longer. How to paint a hallway to make it look spacious and consistent with the whole house?

Depending on the surface

The main problem of the hallway is little daylight. Usually there are no windows like this, because the hallway runs in front of the centre of the house and leads to other, better-lighted rooms. Of course, you can try to plan it in such a way that the light from the rooms reaches also here, but it will not be easy. Moreover, the hallway, open to other rooms, spoils the intimate, cosy atmosphere of the living room or kitchen.

When doing a renovation, we often ask how to paint an anteroom in a block of flats that is really small and what is dark. First of all, it is worth to bet on bright colours and uniform wall covering, without too much decoration. Cool colours on the walls optically enlarge the hallway and warm colours reduce it. In addition, painting the ceiling and walls in the same colour helps to enlarge the room optically. Saving resources is best suited for a small hallway.

Contrasted or consistent

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Another issue is the degree to which the hallway and other rooms in the house fit together. It is worth making sure that the selected colours at least a little bit refer to the whole apartment. How to paint a hallway with stairs? Ideally, the colours at the top and bottom should be the same, possibly very close to each other. The colourful "cut-off" on the wall in the middle of the stairs does not look good - unless we paint the bottom with a uniform, light paint and cover the top with textured wallpaper in similar shades. It's worth playing with contrasts, but remember that completely inconsistent colors rarely work.

When the anteroom is narrow and long

A frequent problem in anterooms is also their shape - they are narrow and long, so as not to take away the surface of the rooms. Unfortunately, in such a room it is not difficult to get the effect of a dark, gloomy corridor or waiting room. How to paint the hallway in two colours to eliminate such an effect? Shorter walls should be darker than longer. It will also help to paint the hall in two horizontal stripes - halfway through the walls of one color, halfway through the other. Such a simple procedure optically widens the wall. However, there should be no more than two belts.