November 25, 8:58 AM
One of the more commonly overlooked areas of the apartment when decorating is the hallway. Whether it's your entry hall, the hall to the bathroom, or the hall to the garage, this may be a heavily traversed pathway to somewhere else in your apartment. Do you want travelers in this realm to think you are lacking on your decorative skills and to be bored on their 7-10 step journey from one room to another? Absolutley not!
If your front door opens into your living area, you may not have to worry about the entry hall, but if not...it's a big issue. You never want the first thing people see when they walk into your apartment to be a blank wall. That's boring and it sets the example that you may not care how your place looks to your guests. Make an impact with them as they arrive by decorating that wall with something that says a little about who you are.
Try pictures of you, family, and friends in cool frames in a unique arrangement or a large wall mirror surrounded by cool art and ivy. I even know someone who collected crosses and made their entry hall a wall of crosses because they didn't think any burglar would rob the place when they saw all the crosses. The guilt would be too much.
Use the entry hallway or any hallway for that matter to set the tone for the rest of your apartment. You can even accent them with a different paint color than the rest of your place to add depth, but make sure the color is complimentary to the joining rooms. Plug in a lamp or track lighting to give some lighting effects or even set the tone by using the sense of smell with a glade plug in.
It's also important to remember that your hallways are passages and should ALWAYS be clutter free. It's not a place to store boxes or your huge computer bag. It's not a place for the trash bag that you don't quite want to walk all the way to your apartment's dumpster. And it's most certainly not a place for your dirty clothes!
Apartment living is the best way of life, so why not make the best of it. Don't forget the little things that help make it rock more...like your hallways!