6 Tips to Decorate a Boring Hallway
6 hallway decor ideas you can do yourself to add interest to a boring window-less space + free art printables to pull it off inexpensively.
Here’s the reality: When we first moved into this house and toured it during the home search process, our upstairs hallway wasn’t exactly on my list of priorities.
I mean… it’s a hallway. It gets us from A to B. Nothing to write home about. (Har har… accidental pun.)
But we walk through our hallway roughly 80 billion times a day (only a sliiiiight exaggeration), so why wouldn’t we give it some love?
This is where it started when we first moved in two years ago.
A whole lotta womp-womp nada happening. And also a whole lotta beige.
Now, it’s rockin’ this look:
This was the other side of the hallway.
And now:
Isn’t it so much better?! I can’t get over the difference! The paint alone makes this space feel so much more airy and bright.
And it really didn’t take that much of an effort to get it all jazzed up. If you’re suffering from boring-hallway-itis, here’s how to deal with a few hallway decor ideas.
6 Hallway Decor Ideas to Update a Boring Hallway:
1. Add interesting lighting
If you’ve never heard of the Magic Light Trick from Nesting With Grace, go do it now! It makes adding a little wall sconce accent without electricity so easy when you need to brighten up a dark corner of your home.
Swapping out boring light fixtures with a fancier flush mount helps a bit too. For ceilings 10′ or taller, opt for pendant lights.
2. Throw in a plant or two as hallway decor
I have a self-proclaimed black thumb, so I go the fake plant route, but this list of house plants has lots of ideas for ones you can put in your hallway that require little to no sunlight at all.
I swiped this artificial fiddle leaf fig from our living room because it felt more at home in this corner. And this artificial potted plant I stuck on my DIY piano stool plant stand looks like the real thing even up close.
If you have the space, incorporate a small console table in lieu of a plant stand.
3. Paint your doors for contrast to decorate a hallway
Ever since we painted all of our interior doors Benjamin Moore Wrought Iron, I haven’t regretted it for one second! It makes all of our rooms so much more high end for just the cost of paint.
This narrow hallway has a va-va-voom factor just because of the door color change as a focal point.
4. Hang large-scale art to trick the eye
The larger your art, the less cluttered your hallway will feel. Ever since we hung up these free architectural prints, it has made this side of our hallway seem pulled together.
5. Roll out a runner
We added this runner the other day to add some texture and pattern to this space, and it feels so cozy in here now! I put this rug pad underneath to keep it from slipping and sliding on our hardwood floor. So far, so good!
6. Go super light or super dark with paint.
Choose a paint color that is very light for a bright, open feel or choose one that is very dark if you want your small hallway to feel cozy.
I like picking either the very top or very bottom colors on paint sample strips for a clean, dramatic effect in a narrow space. For extra drama, paint the ceiling the same color as the walls to draw the eye upward to visually expand a small space.
Choosing medium shades can sometimes make window-less spaces feel flat.
For our walls this go-round, we painted them Benjamin Moore Classic Gray. It’s a very light warm gray and looks beautiful in all kinds of lighting without any odd purple or green undertones.
If you want to know about any of the sources in this space, you can see them all here:
- Wall color: Benjamin Moore Classic Gray
- Door color: Benjamin Moore Wrought Iron
- Wood floors stain: Minwax Provincial
- Runner rug
- Wall sconce
- Semi-flush mount light
- DIY antique brass mirror (tutorial)
- DIY piano stool plant stand (tutorial)
- Vintage Shakespeare book cover art (free printable)
- Matted frames
- Artificial fiddle leaf fig plant
- Handled seagrass basket
- Artificial potted plant
We still plan to deal with our ceiling a bit more in order to remove our attic fan that likely hasn’t been used in decades, but we’ll cross that bridge eventually.
And that bathroom hidden behind that closed door smack in the middle of this hallway? It’s looking SO CRAZY ADORABLE I CAN’T STAND IT! More about that later though. For now, you can see the progress of that big reno here.
Do y’all have any other hallway decorating ideas you’ve used that you absolutely love? Share ’em below! I want to know!
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