best way to lighten a hallway

sammy_kaye18

Hi All

i was just wondering on the best way to lighten a hallway.

The hallway is an L shape. There is a small sort of porch like bulbus bit of the hallway before it thins off and leads to the living room.

Its got two lights. One in the bulbus bit and one in the corridor.

The only 'window' it has is on the front door and the only real big piece of wall is above a radiator after the bedn so hanging a mirror here would get very little light etc.

The corridor also has the airing cupboard in it.

It is currently decorated in a sandy yellow colour with no flooring other than brown rubber tiles that the council laid for us.

Any ideas? i was thinking of putting a new floor down - undecided yet - but not sure if magnolia/an off white is the best colour to go for on the walls.

Can someone give me some ideas?

baby_bronagh

hi
we had similar problem with our hallway. Painted walls with Dulux natural calico and replaced moss green carpet with beech laminate flooring.Make quite a difference. Try laying down a light coloured sheet on hall floor and that will give you an idea of the difference light flooring can make.
hope this helps

Bibbitybob

How about replacing the doors with glass panelled doors? Or if you already have panels in your current doors, just replace the panels with glass/frosted glass? We did this in our small laundry room and it's made the world of difference!

Bibbitybob

Just to add as well, we painted our hallway white and laid an oak effect laminate - the laminate has a slight shine to it so reflects the light nicely. I love the white, although it isn't great for keeping clean/scuff free, but if you get a washable paint it should be fine.

olive84

We have a hallway that at one end has no natural light at all. I just spent the whole weekend painting it 'pure brilliant white', and it has made a massive difference. It was a sort of off white/ with a tint of green in before which I thought was quite light, but the pure white is the best thing IMO. We have a beige carget as well, which lightens things. And we've covered one wall with these mirrors from Ikea that are fairly cheap, which reflects light arounf and makes the hall look bigger. Only downside is that pure white is obviously high maintenance, needing repainting every other year or so.

Norma_Desmond

Can I make another suggestion? Why not make it even darker?!
It sounds strange, but I've got a Georgian house with a very long dark hallway where the only natural light comes from a window on the half-landing, so obviously going for the light and bright look is out.
What I've done is decorate with a very rich red on the walls and a brightly coloured Turkish rug/runner laid onto the pale flagstones.
Lighting comes from a very big and ornate jewelled lantern and I've got a huge 'shabby chic' gilt mirror on the largest wall.
It may be a bit 'Arabian Nights' for some tastes, but it feels really opulent and welcoming - honestly!

knightstyle

Uplighter wallights work well, you can get halogen ones which give a white light.

nalyo

as olive suggested some nice mirrors do some magic too. If you place them in the right spots they will bounce the light back around.

Poppycat

You can get Dulux paint that reflects much more light. I also agree about mirrors assuming you have some light reflecting inside, light a door or window Also a light carpet and halogen lights

We have a dark hallway not by choice old owners. It has a dark laminate floor. But we door have two doors that open into it and a window on top landing. We are going to paint the walls a softer lighter cream and am currently looking at getting a chandelier of some sort preferable with low energy bulbs, nothing to fancy seen on in Argos its like a ball.

ActionCat

I think that it often helps using cool colours in a dark space to make it look brighter. Warm colours, such as soft creams, magnolia etc often look yellowy and dingy when there's not much light.

I also think that matt finish paint works better than silk/satin/eggshell as with with shiny paint you only end up with spots of light being reflected from wall or ceiling lights.

You could try Farrow and Ball's 'Borrowed Light' which is a lovely light shade of blue...and which does exactly what it says on the tin