home style | decorating the space between spaces

When thinking about redecorating your home a lot of people won't consider the in-betweens, the places you use frequently but pay no mind to and the details that are important in those spaces. Of course i'm talking about hallways. Decorating a hallway is much like connecting the dots. You want the hall to work with, and in some way reflect, each room that it leads to otherwise it can look out of place in your home.

Having recently finished decorating each of the upstairs rooms the hallway required a makeover to complete this part of the house. Pulling elements from each of the fours rooms the hallway space now sits comfortably between them.

simplicity
As with each of the fours rooms upstairs, choosing white for the walls offers a clean, light and bright space in what could otherwise be a darker area. White can open up a room giving the feeling of a bigger space and allows for freedom in decorating more that most shades would. Matching floors allows for simple redecorating too so each of the bedrooms has white and grey laminate flooring fitted while the bathroom has white and silver vinyl and so the hall is fitted with a white grey carpet, keeping it simple.

theme
Along with clean and white being the general feel and colour theme of upstairs, gold is an accessory colour that runs through each of the rooms. It's featured in light switches, plug fixings and door handles as well as the lighting and other accessories in the rooms. There are also off-white and beige elements that pull together from each room through to the hall. For example, pictured is the sheepskin rug of the dressing room against the light of the hall, also the safari wallpaper background with the hand-painted marauders map artwork.

lighting
With hallways generally being darker areas of the home due to lack of light it's important to remember to consider how to light the space. Make the most of any windows you have with blinds that block out the light when appropriate and let it in when needed. For this hallway space the choice was white venetian blinds, though not pictured they sit to the left of the stairs (as you can see from the reflection in the Simon Williams painting). Each room upstairs has lighting fixtures that are styled like industrial pendants, while each light pendant is slightly different they are all connected by similar design and/or colour. The dressing room pendant is angular and gold on the outside, the bedroom pendant is an oversized dome that is grey on the outside so it's only fitting that the hallway pendant I got from First Choice Lighting is domed with a gold inside. As mentioned, the cream outer matches elements of the rooms, as does the gold foil inner while it reflects the light from an oversized light bulb. The light fitting at the other end of the hall is a wire dome that when turned on makes a pattern on the walls and ceiling not dissimilar from the metallic patterned wallpaper lining the stairs wall.

decoration
While some people would leave a hallway space empty others fill it with artwork, decorations and mirrors. With white simple and clean walls, opting for pieces of artwork to inject colour and match the other rooms finishes this space. Add to that a mirror that will give the illusion of a bigger space and any finishing touches such as a pretty jar of off-white pussy willow at the top of the stairs sat next to a glittery wash bin that matches the wallpaper and you've got a finished hallway that perfectly connects each room upstairs to the ground floor.

Now to tackle redecorating downstairs...

♥ abby