It’s so easy to forget about decorating a hallway, especially when you’re tight on artwork, and want to hang favored pieces in prettier places, like a living room or bedroom. I must admit, our tiny hallway went undecorated for about a year. Finally, I’ve collected enough art to subdue my stinginess and bestow some loveliness in this high-traffic area of our home.

If your hallway is also small and undecorated, I have a few tips for you:

• Keep things organized. You might be tempted to arrange artwork in an assymetrical arrangement, but I’ve found this to be a bit chaotic in such a tight space, so I’ve opted to vertically stack art of similar widths. If your hallway is long, you might want to arrange them horizontally.
• Find a very low profile table for a wall. This table is about one foot in depth and has no corners, not obstructing the traffic area, but lending the space more of a roomy feel, instead of a feeling of a cramped trasitional space.
• A hallway is a great place to showcase family photos. I don’t use many in main living spaces, but have found that the hallway and bedroom are more intimate spaces that serve as great galleries for such personal “art.”

Frank Llyod Wright was a big believer in not wasting his energy on hallways. He thought they should function to highten anticipation for entrance into a larger, more imposrtant spaces. But if you want to add a little more excitement into a well traveled and mostly ignored place in your home, decorating a hallway is a great little weekend project and something to keep in mind during thrifting trips.

S P A C E   D E T A I L S   &   S O U R C E S :

• Hallway width: 42 inches
• Table: garage sale find by my uncle
• Books: from our personal library
• Photo frame: Target
• Photo: childhood photo of my father
• Art: thread and nail piece from the thrift store
• Sold sign: Route 43 Antique Mall
• Floral art: thrift store
• Mirror: Route 43 Antique Mall

Love my home. Really, I do. But sometimes I lament over the lack of “feature walls” in this wide open apartment. The only area which would qualify as such is a wall with a ginormous Tudor-Revival fireplace slapped on it, which, in fact, almost turned me off of renting this home in the first place. But! I fell for the open feel of the space, and hypnotized myself into loving the go-big-or-go-home fireplace.

So, the fireplace “focal point” and I lived happily ever after for about a year, until I saw these great, big posters from Debbie Carlos on Anja’s blog. Uninvited thoughts like “MUST HAVE,” and “OMG PERFECT!” came to mind. But, where would I put it? Hmmm… no worries. I clicked the purchase button any how. A couple of days ago I received the post in the mail, rolled it out on the floor, and then sat with my legs crossed, staring alternately at the poster on the floor, and the lack of space on my walls. Then a solution popped into my mind! Rearrange! And so, I’ve spent the last two days trying to figure out new ways to refigure the things in our home. And here is what we’ve got.

Perfect? No. But I now have ice cream on my walls, with no worry of future mold and bacteria growth. And that is all that really matters.

Instead of today’s usual Inspired By: Fridays post, I participated in a show-and-tell guest blog for Leigh-Ann at her blog, Freckled Nest. Head on over to check out my five favorite finds, and maybe you will be inspired to go treasure hunting at the thrift store this weekend!