Collaborative guest post with Gavin Forde, Content Marketing Executive, Clever Closet
In most homes, the hallway is seen by more visitors than any other space. As such, it is a chance to showcase your individual style, make a positive first impression on guests, and provide a calming and peaceful welcome when you return home each day. However, many people see their hallways simply as a means of getting from one room to another, rather than a distinct space.
As a result of this neglect, and because of how hallways are used, they are often prone to untidiness. People may leave things behind as they move from one room to another, or use their hallway’s surfaces as a temporary storage space for letters, packages, or deliveries. Moreover, if people in your household (or their guests) enter the house with muddy or wet shoes, it can cause a mess that can make the problem of clutter harder to deal with.
Here, the storage experts at Clever Closet offer five useful ideas for keeping your hallway clean and tidy. These suggestions may or may not apply to your circumstances, so you should tailor your approach to the specific causes of clutter in your own home.
However, by taking a comprehensive approach, you will be able to tidy a messy hallway and maintain this tidier space over time.
5 Clever Ways To Keep Your Hallway Tidy
Maximise your existing storage space
With some creativity and imagination, you can make better use of the storage space you already have available – however, much or little there is.
For example, one practical approach is to use hooks to hang keys, which frees up floor or table space, but you can expand this to many other items that you might want to keep in the hallway – for example, dustpans, brushes, and cleaning equipment. You could also hang attractive bags from these hooks, and use the space inside to store practical items.
You can even purchase wall mounts for irons, mops, buckets and other tools to free up the space they would otherwise occupy on a shelf or console table. Of course, this relies on you having enough wall space to accommodate everything you want to store, but it is a useful first option to help you organise and declutter your space.
Create more storage where you can
Storage options in hallways are usually limited by a lack of space for shelves or cupboards. Hence, it becomes difficult to store a lot of items in the hallway without a proper and organised system, and this is one of the biggest factors that can lead to clutter.
If you have a small hallway and need extra storage space, consider investing in an under-stairs storage solution. These units can be installed easily, even in homes that have utility meters under the stairs, and turn an often unused area into an organised storage system that can combat clutter.
If your home or hallway do not have stairs, consider whether other innovative solutions could be a better fit – for example, storage units that can be built into awkward spaces, alcoves, or attics can create extra space without taking up more room in your hallway. In this way, you can add the storage capacity you need to fight clutter in your home.
Consider hidden storage options
Hidden storage is not only applicable to in-built solutions like those designed for awkward spaces or the gap under your stairs. For example, multifunctional items – such as benches with hidden storage compartments under their seats – can offer a similar hidden storage solution that may be ideal for your hallway.
This approach extends to finding alternative uses for things you already own – as we have suggested above, if you are storing outdoor bags, you can put assorted items inside, provided there is somewhere to put them when you need to take your bag with you on a journey.
You can find a lot of inspiration online, so if you have a particular storage challenge you need to address, search for a solution and see if other people’s ideas could be the answer you are looking for.
Reduce how much you need to store
A common cause of clutter is that people try to store too many things in their hallways at once. There are a few ways to approach this, but one of the simplest is to think in terms of seasons. For example, if you keep your outdoor items like coats and shoes in the hallway, consider whether or not you need all of them there at once.
During the winter, you probably won’t need easy access to warm weather gear like sandals or gardening shoes, so it’s best to store them in a wardrobe in another room until spring.
When the temperature gets warmer, put heavy coats and wellington boots into long-term storage and bring out your summer items again. This type of seasonal approach can quickly free up space.
Get organised
Finally, developing positive habits to help you stay organised can enable you to keep your hallway tidy in a sustainable way. Assign everything a dedicated space to make it easier to put your belongings away, and leave some of your storage capacity available to account for guests.
An under-stairs storage unit, or a system built into an awkward space, will usually have separate drawers, which can help you to stay far more organised than if you are relying on shelves or cupboards. You can sort items according to their function, so that some drawers are used regularly and some are kept for long-term storage; or, you can arrange them to make maximum use of the available space.
Organisational tools can also help, especially if clutter builds up because you are not able to deal with things straight away. A letter holder, for example, will keep your post organised until you have time to sort through it, and is much tidier than leaving things in a pile.
These simple tips will help you find the right solution (or combination of activities) to keep your hallway tidier. By taking a comprehensive approach, you can even improve your approach to organisation and ensure that your hallway stays clean and tidy for the long term.
Before You Go…
If you’re interested in making the most of your hallway space you may also be interested in this post. If you have a dark narrow hallway, there are solutions!
I show you my own dark narrow hallway transformation and actionable tips you can use to brighten up your own space…
How To Lighten A Dark Narrow Hallway
