Most people don’t get too excited about styling a common hallway, but we at Mochi Home were thrilled to get this reader submission. Living in the city, hallways are a big part of our interior life in condo and apartment buildings. Where many people have driveways and manicured front lawns, we have lobbies and hallways to welcome us (and our guests) home. Think of it as indoor curb appeal
This reader send a photo of their hallway, soon to be upgraded by vote of the condo association. Let’s see if we can help them choose a new look. My favorite places for hallway inspiration are hotels, of course! Hotels spend significant design effort in their hallways and lobbies and are great source of ideas.
Here is the current hallway.
Dramatic contrasts make this hallway sophisticated.
The main design changes in all of these options are to (1) remove the outdated mirror and (2) remove the pattern on the floor. After that, the bones of the hallways are pretty normal and standard and can easily look great with a fresh color scheme. This first transformation is the “drama” hallways. Note the black ceilings. This is inspired by a hotel hallway image.
I like the existing chair rail and molding elements. I even don’t mind the current minty green of the doors and frames. You can easily give the hall a grown-up look by darkening the walls with a very mellow dark green-gray. Note the pattern is removed from the floor, helping to de-clutter the visuals.
Neutrals are always a safe bet and won’t look dated over time. Here is a nice black/beige/tan mix. I could see this scheme in reality tomorrow!
If you don’t like neutrals, try a color. I would keep the colors muted and stick to a monochromatic effects to keep the hall from looking clowny. Here is a friendly green palette.
A striped hotel hallway.
Lastly, you can also remove the chair rail detail and opt for a more streamlined wall. This is the total hotel hallway effect with tasteful striped walls and a punch of dark red on the floor.
Here a few more inspiring hallways for more ideas:
Continue reading about Giving an Old Hallway a New Year’s Facelift
Red and green are compliments. These colors vibrate so much, it hurts.
Have I mentioned how much I like drama? And of course, paint is one of the quickest ways to do it. The most dramatic effects come from high contrast color schemes. If you are nerdy, like I am, you can learn all about the science of color theory. Or, to save you some reading, I’ll sum it up. If two colors are located kind of opposite on the color wheel, they are very vibrant when next to each other. Complimentary colors (direct opposites) actually sort look like they are vibrating. And vibrating = dynamic = drama!
Here’s a demonstration of paint drama on an interior event space. You can see the room has it’s own structural drama with tall ceilings and spotlights.
But what if we add a black ceiling? Black and white is the classiest of high contrast. A black ceiling immediately gives the effect of infinity, as if you were under the night sky.
Too much? Here are some nice tan walls. The back wall is left white, to contrast the tan, but with less drama than the black and white. The tan also looks great with the red painting and table cloths.
There are lots of great drama ideas out there. Check out how AbbeyK paints the back wall of a bookshelf. So clever!
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