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Making the Most Out of My Narrow Hallway Entrance

by | Uncategorized

A few weeks ago, we signed a contract to purchase our first home in California! It was a stressful affair, but full of excitement as it’s a new construction and we’ll be the first to live there, as opposed to the 100 year old home we had in New York. So, I figure before we move this fall, I should take a moment to share what we did with the narrow hallway entrance hall in our current living situation.

A little creativity can go a long way in making a narrow hallway useful!  | www.1dogwoof.com

We come through the front door every single day, dropping off our bags, our shoes, our jackets and anything else we happen to be carrying. To be honest, we weren’t used to having such a small space, so we had to come up with some creative ways to stash our stuff. In a rental.

Here’s a look at the “before”, when we first moved in. Our things would be dumped on the floor and the whole area just seemed … dark. It definitely wasn’t fun coming home to that. Somehow, coming home to an unorganized and narrow hallway just seemed a bit depressing, which makes the whole transition of moving across the country that much harder. It made me miss the beautiful home we had poured so much effort and love into. I knew this was something we had to change up.

Narrow hallway, before the changes. www.1dogwoof.com

First things first. I painted an old dining room console table with chalk paint from Annie Sloan. Yes, it was AGES ago, and we finished the hallway by the end of the year, and yes, it’s taken me this long to write about it. But better later than never?

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So at least now, the area was brighter than it was before. The walls are still a funny shade of the lightest pink, but we live with it. It’s not bad at all, really. We put up a Hoppvals blind from Ikea on the front door so passers-by can’t see us wandering around our home like it was some kind of theater show. We also put up a large mirror over the console table so everyone can check themselves out for stray hairs and stuff stuck in their teeth before they head out the door.

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Back in NY, I scored two free wine crates from the local wine shop.  We painted those in Annie Sloan English Yellow and added some unique wood casters from D. Lawless Hardware. I was feeling a bit matchy-matchy, so I also grabbed two wood pieces from Michaels, painted them the same yellow and added some D. Lawless Hardware glass knob coat hooks. Drew installed the arrow hooks at kids’ height, and the larger set of hooks at big people height.

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On the console table itself, I use my copper striped tray to hold small stray items, like baby slippers and the odd single mitten left over from our 2 weeks of winter.

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Because the hallway is so narrow, there’s usually a traffic jam when we are all trying to get out the door, or when we’re all trying to get in the door, but at least we can park our stuff without letting it drag too far into the living space. This just goes to show that, well,

1. We have too much stuff
2. Necessity breeds creativity
3. You can do more in a small space that you think!

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17 Comments

  1. Stephanie

    Thank you! We have a very small/narrow foyer with a vaulted ceiling and I keep telling my husband that we need to do something with this. It looks so drab and just plain boring. Yellow isn’t so much my color but I love the way it pops and it gives me some great ideas for brightening up that space!

  2. Julie

    Here in the Uk we generally seem to have much smaller homes and much smaller rooms than I see on US blog home tours so this is a very normal sized hall for us!
    I love the brightness you created and the yellow is lovely. We moved recently and our hall is just a white box, I am seeing yellow in it’s future now!

  3. Bethany

    I love how you made the space pretty AND functional! Both are so important. 🙂

  4. ChiWei

    Thanks Bethany!

  5. ChiWei

    Yay for color! Our home here is smaller than what we had before, so it’s necessary to get creative about space. I find I also have to be much pickier when it comes to curating things for my home 🙂

  6. ChiWei

    It’s no fun coming home and the first thing you see is drab and boring, right? Any color will work, whatever puts a smile on your face 🙂

  7. Rachel

    Such a bright, happy space! Crazy how painting that table white instantly makes the entry look about twice as big. And those rolling crates are so fun. Love it!

  8. Gilly @ Colour Saturated Life

    Love the choice in colours on this space….they really help to brighten it up! Such a beautiful transformation.

  9. Annie

    WOW!!! I am in love as well! This is absolutely beautiful! Beautiful photos too! Thanks so much for sharing this inspiring piece!

  10. Zircon Interior

    Hey ChiWei, You did awesome work and your hallway entrance is wonderful having unique color coding. Thanks for sharing it with us.

  11. Kristine Manley

    Oh, how sweet this is. Great job!

  12. ChiWei

    Thank you!

  13. ChiWei

    Thank you! The paint really worked out well!

  14. Julie

    I just stopped back to say I did it! – I finally got round to adding a little splash of yellow to our hallway – all thanks to this little bit of inspiration. I pinned so I could find it again and I’m really happy with the results. so thank you 🙂

  15. ChiWei

    So glad to hear it!

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