How to make a narrow hallway wider effectively

Make a narrow hallway wider or make it look wider it is a task that we can achieve through a series of efficient and effective solutions when applied correctly.

And that is what we are going to see next: 8 Effective Solutions to Make a Narrow Hallway Look Wider, Bigger.

Choose one or those solutions that you can implement in yours. The more of them you can apply, the wider your hallway will appear.

You can watch the video just below where I tell you how to make a narrow hallway look wider or you can see the photos and ideas with text below the video.

paint it all white

How to make a narrow hallway look wider by painting it white

Design and photography Stefana Silber

You only have to see this before and after of the narrow corridor that we see above this paragraph, to realize the great difference between a corridor painted in dark colors and a corridor painted in light tones.

Which one do you think is wider?

It's exactly the same hallway.

They have removed that hideous gray and instead painted everything a pristine white, ceiling and walls and the result is spectacular.

Decorative moldings have also been added to the walls, but these do not influence the visual effect of making it wider.

The big change comes only from the color change.

So if you want to make your narrow hallway look wider you can start by painting it all white.

You will notice a huge difference, especially if you now have it painted in dark colors.

Let's see the following solution to make your narrow hallway wider:

Paint everything the same color

Floor, walls and ceiling painted the same color to make the corridor wider

Not only are you going to do make the hallway look wider by painting everything a light colorwhich also works, as we saw above.

The trick, in this case, is paint everything the same colorespecially light colors like white.

And when I say everything I mean everything: Walls, ceiling and floor. Obviously, you may not be able to paint the floor white.

Why does painting everything the same color make a narrow hallway look wider? Easy:

because the eye it has no visual limit and does not perceive contrast between one color and another and this translates into a greater visual amplitude.

You just have to look at the narrow corridor above these lines.

It has the walls, floor and ceiling painted the same white and there is no contrast to look at, nor any limits, and the corridor becomes visually wider, wider.

Take a look at this other aisle and see the difference:

The walls have been painted white, and the ceiling in a yellow tone, and as you can see, although they are light and bright colors, by giving a visual limit to the eye, it perceives the contrast and the visual amplitude disappears.

In fact, this effect does just the opposite of what we want to do. It makes the narrow hallway look narrower.

Thus, in addition to painting it in light tones, if you can paint absolutely everything whiteyou will remove visual limits and contrasts and everything will be much broader visually talking.

Let's move on to the next solution to make a narrow hallway look wider:

Paint in cool tones

Blue corridor to see it wider and deeper

Photography Liz Marie Blog | Instagram @lizmariegalvan

If the target does not finish convincing you and you would like to add a touch of color to your narrow hallway and still make it appear widerthen use cool colors.

Cool colors are green, blue, and violet in all their tones and undertones.

Why is using these colors going to make your hallway look wider?

Because cool tones create the throwback effect and make the spaces painted in these colors, seem deeper.

It's all because of the wavelength in which the eye perceives these colors.

As it is a short wavelength, it is very easy for the eye to focus and perceive cold tones, which results in creating the illusion that they move away, that they recede, and this in turn makes let's see the spaces painted in cold colors wider.

That yes, although it works in all the cold tones, better use cool, but light tones, such as light blues or light greens since they are brighter and reflect a higher percentage of light than dark ones.

Let's continue with the following solution that you can implement to make your narrow hallway look wider:

install mirrors

A narrow hallway with a mirror to gain visual amplitude

Design and photography by Jennifer Paro

At this point it goes without saying that mirrors make spaces appear larger.

It is universally known.

That's the way it is, if you want to make your narrow hallway look much wideras if by magic, alone you have to install mirrors.

And if you install them facing each otheryou will multiply to infinity (literally) this illusion.

In addition, this solution to make narrow corridors look wider is also decorative, so you will add an extra decorative bonus to the decoration of your corridor.

yes, try install mirrors that are not too thick and deepotherwise they will "eat up" a lot of visual space.

Better bet for mirrors with a thin and narrow frame, similar to the mirror with a thin white frame that we see in the corridor above these lines.

This solution is extremely effective, but it is even more so if we have cabinets in the hallway:

Glazed doors on hall closets to make it look wider

If you have cabinets in the hallway, a great solution for to make this appear wider, more spacious and brighter, is to install mirrors on the cabinet doors.

This way you will create a large mirrored surface that will multiply the light and the visual space and your hallway will take on another extra dimension.

There are more ideas and solutions to make your hallway look even wider, like the one below:

Light rugs with horizontal lines

Rugs to make narrow hallways appear wider

Design and Photography Jonesville

If you want to add a rug to your hallway, then you have another great opportunity to not only decorate it, but also make it visually wider.

How?

Choosing a rug in light colors and, especially, with horizontal stripes.

Why? Well, if you have read the solutions above, you may have noticed that one of them was to paint everything white or light colors.

But in many, practically in the majority of houses, the floor cannot be painted.

Thus, at put a white carpet that covers a large part of the floor, we will have transformed that floor into a white one or in large part at least.

Also, if we choose the horizontal striped ruglike the one we see in the corridor above these paragraphs, we will guide the eye from left to right and visually make the corridor appear wider.

This is the same as when you put on a striped shirt and you look wider, right? It is because we guide the eye from left to right and vice versa and you gain horizontal depth.

For this reason, installing a carpet in light colors and with vertical stripes is one of the best and easiest ways to make a narrow corridor wider.

Let's see another, what's up plus:

Create a subtle focal point

How to make a narrow hallway wider by adding a subtle focal point

Photography by Laura Gummerman in A Beautiful Mess

If we create a subtle focal point, we will guide the eye to that pointcausing the “flaws” of the corridor, such as, for example, it is very narrow, to be overlooked, since the eye is focused on that focal point.

That is what focal points are created for.

That said, as you can imagine, the idea is create a subtle focal point, otherwise we will overload the spaceand that's the last thing we want to achieve in a narrow corridor which we want to make wider.

Thus, you can put, for example, some subtle squares with some color accentslike the corridor that we see above, that do not saturate or overload the corridor, but that draw the eye's attention.

A small plant, a nice lamp or wall light… It is worth anything you want, as long as it is subtle and guides the eye towards it.

Let's see more ideas:

narrow furniture please

How to make a narrow hallway look wider by installing narrow furniture

In many corridors we have no choice but to add a piece of furniture.

Either because that corridor is the hall or because we need storage space at home and it is the only place we can put one more piece of furniture.

That's fine. Take advantage of all the meters of our house.

But you have to do it right and, above all, with common sense.

So if you have to have a piece of furniture in your hallway, better that this piece of furniture is narrow so that it does not "eat" much ground or recharge the corridor.

Today you have furniture that adapts to small spaces, in a very narrow format, such as these 25 narrow, but really narrow consoles.

Leaving aside the furniture, decoration and colors, we only have one point left to deal with to make a narrow corridor look wider: Lighting.

Correctly illuminate the corridor

A poorly lit narrow hallway

This corridor that we see just above, is a narrow corridor and, in addition, poorly lit.

Notice the shadows cast by the ceiling lamps.

They make the hallway look gloomy, sad, and smaller than it appears.

Look at the following corridor:

How to make a narrow hallway wider: Correct lighting

This is a much better lit hallway.

Recessed spotlights do not create shadows and give a more homogeneous and uniform lightingwhich makes the light reach all corners making the corridor look wider.

With this I do not mean that you cannot install hanging lamps in your hallway, if that is what you want.

But if those lamps create shadows, in addition to the lamps you should also install other lighting such as spotlights, LED footlights, wall sconces, ceiling lights or another of the many solutions that exist so that there are no shadows in the corridor and it is well lit.

Useless paint the entire corridor with a bright color, install mirrors on the walls, put narrow furniture or carry out any of the other solutions that we have seen, if there is no correct lighting.

Good lighting alone makes a space appear larger and brighter..

Bad lighting throws away all the solutions we have adopted.

The more solutions you can implement in your corridor, the wider it will be or seem. Now you can see these other 50 ideas to decorate a narrow hallway.

And if you think this article can help a friend or family member, share it, so they can take advantage of these solutions. Thank you!

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