Having a dark entrance hallway means your home feels really gloomy and enshrouded when you step inside. You also end up putting the hall light on during the day, which is a complete waste of electricity. How can you brighten up this dark part of your home without installing and turning on loads of lights? Read through the ideas in this guide to learn some pro tips.
Find Ways To Incorporate Natural Light
The problem with an entrance hall is that it doesn’t tend to have windows for you to bring in natural light. That being said, there are a couple of ways you can incorporate more outside light into this space:
- Choose a front door with a larger window: Opt for a front door design that includes window panes to bring light into your entrance hall. You’ll see an immediate change in illumination from this.
- Install a window above your front door: Alongside this, you can install a window above your front door. This is known as a fanlight, but it’s a brilliant way to brighten your home with some natural lighting – and it stops the hallway from feeling gloomy.
Use Glass & Mirrors
Glass and mirrors are both excellent for brightening dark spaces because they either reflect light around the area or remove darker tones from the space. Hang a large mirror on your entrance hall wall to give it more brightness – and to provide the illusion of more space.
Then, incorporate some glass elements into the hallway design. As demonstrated by TuffX Glass, you can use toughened glass as balustrades for your staircase – or even as the steps themselves. Some people even go one step further and have part of their entrance hall made from glass with lighting beneath.
Design The Hallway With Brighter Colours
If your hallway is painted black, then it’s always going to feel dark. That’s an extreme example but you get the idea; move away from dark paint or dark wallpaper designs that make the whole place feel enshrouded.
The same goes for the floor: you might have darkwood flooring of LVT, but add a pop of colour with a bright rug or hallway runner. You’re bringing more brightness to a hallway, and it looks and feels less gloomy and dark.
Keep Doors Open or Go Open Plan
The main reason entrance hallways feel really dark is that you close other doors in the hall. The front door is closed, but so is the living room door or the kitchen door, etc. Change this by leaving those doors open for most of the day, allowing sunlight to flow from them into your hallway.
Or, if you feel like a bigger home renovation project is on the horizon, then knock down some walls to create a more open-plan living situation. Instead of a doorway you could have a large open archway leading to one of your downstairs rooms to maximise natural light in the hall.
The big takeaway from this post is that your entrance hallway doesn’t have to be dark during the day. You can bring more light into this space by altering parts of its design or adding some cool elements to it.
*This is a collaborative post
