Hallway Stairs and Landing Ideas To Elevate Your Entry

The view from the front door is the first impression that anyone gets of the inside of your home. So you want the hall and stairs decor to be warm and welcoming and perhaps give a bit of a clue as to who you are. But hallway, stairs and landing spaces can often be quite difficult; we don’t tend to think of them as a ‘room’ as such, more passing through places. In the UK, hallways can often be small, with steep narrow stairs and not much of a landing. Any of these factors make them difficult spaces to work with. Here are my best hallway stairs and landing ideas to make your hallway spaces feel more special.

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What Do You Need From Your Hallway?

For most of us, as well as being the gateway to our home, the hallway is also an area for storing coats and shoes and therefore some practical storage is a must. Hall decor also needs to be hard-wearing as it has to deal with wet coats and mud from shoes, as well as (in my house!) small hands on the walls as they walk through. The natural light in hallways and landings can also often be muted – they often don’t have any direct light coming in, so paint colours need to be carefully considered.

Hallway Stairs And Landing Decorating Ideas

I once lived in a house where there was very little natural light in the hallway, and what there was, was north facing. North facing rooms never get bright sun light shining directly into them. The previous owners of the house had painted a feature wall (the wall going up the stairs) in a very dark blackish purple. To me, it just made the space feel incredibly dark and much smaller than it actually was. Several coats of a warm pale neutral later, it felt so much lighter, brighter and more open.

Whilst decor is always very much personal choice, it is worth considering when decorating a hall and stairs (and landing), where the natural light comes from and how the light changes during the day. Whilst a really dark colour in a north facing living room might make it feel cosy, in a small hallway it could just make it feel claustrophobic. The opposite argument to that is that a really dark hall and stairs can help to emphasise how light and bright all the other rooms are! It just comes down to the look and feel that you want to achieve and what you think feels right in your home.

The other thing to bear in mind when decorating a hall, stairs and landing, is that they link all the other rooms together. So colour choice can be key to helping the rooms to flow and also to achieving a consistent feel across the home.

Ideas for Paint or Wallpaper (or Both?) In Your Hall, Stairs And Landing

Again, this is entirely personal choice, though from experience that hallways tend to take a bit of a beating – children, dogs, large pieces of furniture; they all go through the front door! So I would always choose hard-wearing paint for a hallway. If you want to be practical while keeping things interesting, why not have a 2 tone painted wall, perhaps with a darker colour at the bottom and lighter at the top?

While wallpaper is great, it might get dirty quite quickly in a high traffic area such as the hallway and stairs, and it can’t be easily washed or patched up. That said though, it can look absolutely stunning:

Hallway Storage

I’ll hold my hands up, I’m the absolute worst for dumping my coat over the end of the newell post! We are very lucky in our hall to have a large cupboard under the stairs, however it’s right at the far end of the hallway from the door – so our coats and shoes don’t always make it in there! There’s nothing worse though than coming in to shoes and coats all over the place, so hall storage is a key consideration.

A hallway bench if you have space, gives somewhere to sit while putting shoes on, but also gives a place to store shoes underneath out of the way. Coat hooks or a coat stand are also really useful, personally I prefer to have them on a wall that is behind the area where the front door opens – so that they aren’t the first thing you see when you come in. This all helps to keep the hallway clutter free and give that open welcoming feeling. I have a whole other post of storage ideas for the hallway if you want to see more.

If you have space on your landing, this can also be a great spot to squeeze in a bit of extra storage too.

Artwork Ideas for the Hallway Stairs and Landing

Pictures and art work can transform a space and really give it character. Artwork can also help to unify the decor and bring a flow to the hallway, stairs and landing areas, helping them to feel more inter-connected. A stairs wall can be a great area to have a gallery wall as they are generally the biggest wall in the whole house! Pieces of art can also help to break up a long hallway corridor, or be a feature on a large landing wall.

Make a Feature of Your Stairs

While we may not all possess a grand staircase, you can still make create a stunning decor feature with your stairs. A beautiful stair runner can really give the wow factor even on the steepest, narrowest stairs.

If you don’t have budget to stretch to a carpet runner, you can also create some amazing effects simply with paint and wallpaper:

Wall Panelling For The Hallway Stairs and Landing

Wall panelling is really popular at the moment and is another great idea for bringing together the spaces in your hall, stairs and landing. There are lots of different styles you can chose from and it is something that is very easily DIY-able (really!). Here are a couple of my favourite Insta images:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5S0YIsnkeH/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link https://www.instagram.com/p/CEHnr7SBdaS/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Decorating Ideas for the Landing

If you are like me, you can only dream of having a landing at the top of the stairs that is big enough to do anything with! So here are a few creative ideas:

Plants

Plants can brighten up any space and can be featured in the decor throughout the hallway, stairs and up to the landing. These neat plant stands and planters are great where space on the landing is limited – or you could even use the wall planter as a feature on the stairs too!

Mirrors

I love using mirrors throughout my home as they are so useful for bouncing light around – on a landing this can be particularly useful as often there isn’t much natural light.

Feature Lighting

I don’t know about you, but the ceiling above my stairs and landing is the only space in my house where I could fit a feature chandelier style light. Here are a couple of ideas:

The Finishing Touches

As the gateway to your home, it’s important to give your hallway those finishing touches that tell people a bit about you. A mirror by the door can be great for adding a bit of personality to a space; they are also practical in a hallway for giving yourself a once over before you go out the door! In a dark hallway they are also good for helping to bounce the light around. A console table is also a nice touch as it gives somewhere to put your keys etc. and to style a few bits if you like faffing!

I’m working on my hallway, stairs and landing at the moment and I’ll definitely be using some of these ideas – I’m looking forward to showing you what I’ve done!