The first two metres of a house takes more traffic than any other part of it and is almost always the last thing anybody decorates. Everyone arrives through it, leaves through it, and drops the same four objects there every day, and yet it is usually a corridor with a radiator, a pile of shoes and one hook doing the work of five. It is also the cheapest space in the house to fix, because it is small and because the fix is mostly clearances rather than furniture. Below is the whole thing in order of travel: floor, drop zone, hooks, wall, light, and what to do if you do not have a hallway at all.

In this article

• The four jobs the first two metres do
• 1. The floor, and the width you cannot lose
• 2. The drop zone
• 3. Hooks, and the height nobody measures
• 4. The wall above it
• 5. The light, which almost nobody fixes
• What if there is no hallway at all?
• What an entryway costs to fix
• The real problem with entryway inspiration
• Frequently asked questions

The four jobs the first two metres do

It has to let people through, catch what they are carrying, hold what they take off, and be the last thing they check before leaving. Four jobs, in that order of importance, and the order matters because they compete for the same floor. Almost every entryway that does not work has solved jobs two and three at the expense of job one, usually with a piece of furniture that looked reasonable in a shop and turns out to be four inches too deep. Start from the corridor and add only what still fits.

1. The floor, and the width you cannot lose

Thirty-six inches of clear walking width, measured from the front of whatever is on one wall to the front of whatever is on the other. That is the number the entire space is built around and the only one you cannot negotiate, because below it two people cannot pass, a pushchair will not turn, and every coat hanging on the wall catches on somebody going by. Forty-two inches is genuinely comfortable. Thirty is survivable in a single-person flat and will still feel tight. Measure it before you buy anything, because every other decision on this page is downstream of that one figure.

Then the runner. Leave 4 to 6 inches of bare floor on each side rather than filling the width, because a hall that shows some floor either side reads wider than one carpeted wall to wall. Keep it clear of the door swing entirely, which usually means starting it about 30 inches in from the door. And use a doormat inside as well as out: most of what gets walked into a house comes off in the first two steps, and the mat is the cheapest piece of floor protection you will ever buy.

2. The drop zone

Everyone arrives holding keys, a phone, post and a bag, and all four need somewhere to land within one step of the door. If they do not have one, they land on the kitchen counter instead, which is how kitchen counters become hallways. A console table at 30 inches high and no more than 12 inches deep does the whole job. Depth is the trap: a 16 inch console in a 40 inch hall leaves 24 inches of walking width and makes the corridor unusable, while a 12 inch one holds exactly the same four objects and barely registers.

On top of it, one shallow dish and nothing else that is not used daily. The dish is what stops keys migrating, and a single defined container works where an open surface does not, because an open surface accumulates and a bowl has a visible limit. If the hall is too narrow for a table at all, a wall-mounted shelf at the same 30 inches does the same job with no floor footprint, and is the single best move available in a genuinely narrow hall.

For the wall above the console

Life's Better With Blooms Print

A porch, a lake and a hanging basket, which is the right subject for the one wall everybody sees on the way out. Sizes up to A1, so it holds a hallway rather than floating in it.

from $20.95 Hang It →

3. Hooks, and the height nobody measures

Sixty-six inches from the floor to the top of the hook, spaced 8 to 10 inches apart, mounted on a single timber rail rather than screwed in individually. The height matters because a coat hung at 72 inches drags on the shoulder of the person reaching for it and one at 55 inches puts the hem on the floor. The spacing matters because coats are wider than hooks, and six hooks at 4 inch centres holds three coats, badly. A rail matters because it spreads the load and because fixing one straight line is much easier than fixing six.

Add a second row at 40 to 48 inches if there are children, and add a bench at 18 inches if the hall is wide enough, because putting shoes on standing up is the reason shoes end up in a pile rather than under something. A bench also solves storage without looking like storage: the space under an 18 inch seat holds two pairs each for four people, which is the realistic daily load rather than the entire household's footwear.

For the bench

Wander More, Worry Less Pillow

A hall bench is a hard surface people sit on for ten seconds at a time, and one cushion is the difference between furniture and a shelf at knee height. Mountain sunrise, which suits a door.

from $45.95 Soften It →

4. The wall above it

One mirror or one piece of art, centred at 57 inches, and the choice between them is practical rather than aesthetic. A mirror is the last thing anybody checks before leaving and it throws light back down a corridor that almost never has a window, which is the single most useful thing any object can do in a hallway. Art is the right call if there is already a mirror, or if the hall has glass in the front door, because two reflective surfaces facing each other in a narrow space stops feeling like a home and starts feeling like a lift.

If you go with art, a pair or a trio hung as one group beats a single small frame, for the same reason a pair works above a bed: a hallway wall is read while walking past, so it needs enough horizontal presence to register at speed. Keep the group to roughly two thirds the width of the console. The gallery wall layout guide has the arithmetic for the row, the pair and the spine, which are the three that suit a corridor.

For a pair, hung as one group

Fresh Cuts Bouquet Print

The second half of a pair, in the same palette and the same sizes, which is what makes two prints read as one object rather than two decisions made on different days.

from $20.95 Make It a Pair →

5. The light, which almost nobody fixes

Most hallways have one ceiling fitting, usually harsh, usually the only light in the space, and it is the reason entryways photograph badly and feel worse. The fix is a lamp on the console at eye level, on a timer or a smart plug so it is on when you come home. One warm lamp at 2700K changes a corridor more than any piece of furniture in this guide, because it replaces overhead light with light at the height of a face, and because arriving into a lit hall and arriving into a dark one are different experiences of the same house.

What if there is no hallway at all?

Plenty of flats open straight into the living room, and the answer is a zone rather than a room. You need about two feet of wall: a narrow shelf at 30 inches, a hook rail above it at 66, and a mat on the floor to mark the threshold. That is enough to give the four objects somewhere to land and enough to stop the sofa becoming the coat rack. The mat is doing more work than it looks: a defined patch of different floor is what makes people stop and take their shoes off, which is most of what an entryway is for psychologically.

For the hook by the door

Daily Sunshine Tote

The bag that lives on the hook and goes out with you, which is the one object in this guide that is both storage and the reason the hook exists. Fifteen inches square.

$33.95 Hook It →

What an entryway costs to fix

Between $120 and $400 for the whole thing, and the order you buy in matters more than the total. Hooks on a rail are $20 to $50 and change the space most, because they take coats off the floor and the newel post. A runner is $40 to $120. A console or a wall shelf is $60 to $200 depending on whether it stands or hangs. A lamp is $30 to $80. Art starts around $21 and is the last thing to buy, not because it matters least but because it is the only decision that gets easier once everything else is in place.

The real problem with entryway inspiration

Every entryway photograph you have ever saved is of a hallway eight feet wide with a window at the end, and yours is four feet wide with a radiator and a meter cupboard. That is the whole disconnect: the images are of foyers and the problem is corridors, and nothing in the picture tells you the one number that would let you reproduce any of it, which is how much floor is left to walk on. It is mass-produced indifference with a console table in it, a category of photograph in which the furniture is chosen for the camera and the person who lives there has to edge past it sideways forever. A real entryway is 36 inches of clear floor and four things on a wall. Get the clearances and the style takes care of itself. If the corridor leads somewhere you sit, the reading nook guide runs the same method on the room at the other end of it.

Frequently asked questions

Finish the hall: browse the wall art collection, the posters for a pair above the console, and home and living for the bench and the hook.