Please help me redecorate my dingy hallway

[DingyHall2026]

I've been putting off decorating the hall since i moved in 9 1/2 years ago, but it's time. The reason for the delay is I've got no idea what to do.

Attached are some pics of the hall. Excuse the clutter, but hopefully you can get a sense of it.

For idea generation let's pretend there are no budget restrictions and anything is in scope. We like mid century styling generally, and a lot of the house is painted blue, from a navy downstairs cloakroom (off the hall) to dusky mid blue bedroom, pale turquoise living room, and teal spare room.

DH would like a green in the hall, so that might be a good starting point for colours. Otherwise putty/clay type neutrals are prob the right area, but really keen to see any ideas anyone wants to throw this way please!

What questions do we need to consider? I hate the architrave and door hardware, even the doors. But i don't know where to start replacing these. Hall has two doors on one side and one door plus double doored hall cupboard on the other, which feelsa lot to do well
Then there is the bit at the bottom of the stairs which is just chaos.

Help!

Very many thanks

A contrast between the doors and the walls is nice, but can probably be achieved with a bold wall colour - less of a big job than replacing doors or painting woodwork. We are about to repaint the dingy Victorian hallway - I like f&b "yonder" but will get it colour mixed as can't afford to do the whole hallway landing etc. Like you, our house is mainly blues! This is a nice muted blue. We have Dulux "denim drift" in the living room which is also nice.

If you need storage in the hallway I would perhaps go for taller pieces, with opaque doors. Less posters on the wall. Just to get rid of clutter. A nice runner as pp has AI'd for you.

See there is me helping, I've got over my initial jealousy of the world's biggest hallway 😆

Its not a Victorian house sadly. It's about 25 years old. Its in a 30s conservation area so is vaguely in the same style as those houses, but lower ceilings. Luckily generous proportions for a modern house.

The whole thing was entirely magnolia when we moved in with mostly bland features and a few faux Victorian attempts.

My tuppence worth…

use a lighter version of the living-room colour and carry it up the staircase (or choose a light version of your preferred green and redecorate the LR in a darker version thereof)

improve lighting by adding a combination of downlighters, a statement light fixture and wall lights (on separate switches, so you can vary the mood).

add a modern runner and a large plant (as suggested by a PP)

replace the door furniture with something stylish and modern

get a narrow hall table with drawers for everyday bits and bobs

Ah, that makes more sense! It certainly is a lovely space.

Dread to think what word you'd use for my hallway 😂.

You have a really lovely home, it looks so welcoming and warm.

The problem with adding colour on the walls is that it will highlight the doors you don’t like.

Personally I prefer pale neutral colours in hallways, particularly if they’re narrow, to make them feel larger, and to blend best with multiple doors, and blend into the rooms opening off it. The focus the is on the artwork and objects rather than the wall colour.

You could lime the flooring to make it slightly lighter. This will help make the narrow corridor look wider, and again blend with the walls better.

Unless you paint the doors the same colour as the walls.

This is a bit bland, but note the lighter floor, the lighter front door, removal of the dark chest on the left and replacement with radiator cover on the right (for letters etc), change of door hardware.

Second pic adds runner + more artwork.

All really interesting ideas, thanks so much for putting the time into making pictures for me to see!

I like the radiator cover idea, it'll turn something ugly into something useful I hope with the shelf.

The wooden floor goes continuously across the entire ground floor so that's not in scope for lightening unfortunately, and I do like the pale honey wood colour tbh. Also your idealised pics will never last more than 2 minutes in my house! We aren't minimalists and despite DH's pleadings, small piles of thinga do accumulate in various places.

The lighter front door is a big change, I'm not sure if I love it or hate it but will definitely mull over it. That's the whole point isn't it - look at options repeatedly to work out which you like.

The other complicating factor is the hall leads to the stairs which then have another hallway at the top - DH can't get his head around the idea of where to change colour so thinks that whatever colour we have by the front door will have to carry on all the way up the stairs and onto the upstairs area. More pics attached, what do others think?

I promise all the otherrooms are decorated! It's just this hall stairs area we've been putting off. All are the original build colour and carpets and are sooo shabby now.

And my big Pinterest pic still hasn't loaded but here is a snapshot of some of the things I liked

Wall lights make a huge difference and are much more flexible, spots are dated. Sliding doors.

Ooh sliding doors is a great shout. Can you get sliding doors which match normal doors? I don't think we could get all the doora sliding, but jusy the hall cupboard might work well

I dislike wall lights, but will have a look online. I worry the ceiling is too low for anything other than spotlights, but maybe I'm being OTT and it's fine. Will def add that into the Pinterest searches

Think of your living room or bedrooms – imagine having only overhead lights and no lamps (assuming you have lamps!) – that's the same thing with spots vs wall in common areas.

I’m clueless as to what to do with it, but it’s a lovely space OP.

Thanks for all help, also the lovely comments about my house. I worry it's messy and some key bits are shabby so it really means a lot that it comes across as warm and welcoming to some people.

I don't think I'd really twigged until now that the rooms which are a bit more done are often more hidden away, whereas the hall is the big every single person sees. That's enough reason to not delay this another 9 1/2 years

The hallway is the room I tend to update more than any other - because it gets a lot of wear and tear, and because of the frequent redecorating I feel I can be a bit more adventurous.

I had a very similar hallway before my renovation in terms of wall and floor colour - farrow and ball suggested school house white walls and drop cloth woodwork and doors with railings on the stair bannister. If you can’t choose then they do a colour consultation as do other companies and it’s really worth it as they know what works.

I hated our panel doors, mock Victorian in a 1980’s build, would have loved to replace them and all the woodwork which was stained dark🤮. Eventually could not face the hassle and cost so replaced the doors with very simple oak ones and painted all the woodwork in the hall white satin.
I might do that in yours along with a muddy green on the walls. Only look at accessories once that is all done and you see it with fresh eyes. What about a nice chair under the stair?

We have a much darker and narrower hallway than you but we took inspiration from this photo from Pinterest for our recent decorating project. Basically a darker colour goes on the woodwork - doors, skirting, architraves and below the dado rails and a lighter colour above. We used Little Greene rolling fog 143 on the woodwork and a lighter version of the same colour on the walls and ceiling.

What a lovely hallway.
I think the sheer number of doors which are not all the same is throwing it off.
I would think about painting all the doors in with the wall colour, which would make them less of a feature and would make the space feel so much calmer. I have done this before to tie in features which were at odds.
Perhaps find some really wonderful art for the walls to add interest, do you like mid century wall hangings for example? Or a nice round mirror or two.

That works ok if you don’t have too many doors. But if whether you pick a darker wall colour with lighter doorframes/woodwork or a lighter wall colour with darker doorframes/woodwork - it simply highlights the number of doors.

And if you’re a maximalist with lots of furniture, pictures and stuff in a small space contrasting paints can add to visual clutter.