Hallway
Laminate If you’re watching your budget but still want a quality finish, laminate is a good place to start. Laminates have come a long way since ’70s Mission Brown, and there is a wider selection of colours, textures, wood grains and benchtops available than ever. This range means that there are endless opportunities to express individual taste without sinking the entire design budget. Gone are the days of edges peeling back from kitchen doors or chunks being taken out if you accidentally hit a laminated edge with a pot! I only use ABS edging when specifying kitchen finishes as it’s a high-pressure laminate banding that is abrasion-resistant and seals the edges of kitchen doors. At only a few hundred dollars extra, this edging is also a relatively inexpensive way to insure the longevity of a laminate kitchen. This kitchen is a great example of the versatility of laminate, with the bright, fun orange overhead cupboards set off by the contrasting laminate of the lower cabinetry that provides the look and feel of a modern wood veneer.
Light up your stair handrail This lighting can make an otherwise ordinary element into a feature. Apart from being an interesting alternative to a drop down pendant or wall lights, lighting under your hand rail offers soft overall stair illumination, too. Get the look with LED strip lighting. If working on a new project, ask your architect or builder about installing a groove in your rail to carry the strip; and talk to your electrician about hard wiring it to the wall. Alternatively, you could add this to an existing rail where a power socket is in easy reach. Purchase a light strip that has an adhesive backing (I recommend SAL), and the wiring can be painted the same colour as the rail and/or wall. BONUS TIP: Ask your strip lighting supplier for flat wiring and to show you the range of lighting colours, as they are available from cool to warm.
Create an artistic exhibition If you have pieces of art to show off in your hallway, or any other room for that matter, you’ll need to create all a spectacle worthy of the Guggenheim Museum. There can be no more powerful a design tool than lighting to highlight the works of art, sculpture and furniture pieces that occupy a space. The stage-managed lighting in this wide hallway shows how strategic placement of light is key to creating the right theatrical effect. Colour also plays a huge role in creating the right ambiance in a room – the dark walls seen here help absorb a lot of the light to create this rich, dramatic atmosphere.
I LOVE how these little nooks look, particularly the one along the side of the door. I would love to have this/these in my hallway! There may be use for it in other rooms too like the dining room. Having those six nooks beside the door in the dining room and door to the living room and perhaps somewhere else like the entryway would bring some repetition and bring the house together.
The Slab Door Another modern detail is the slab door with top and bottom pivot hinges in lieu of the typical butterfly type of hinge. The pivot hinges are installed in the floor as well as in the head of the door frame in lieu of the door jambs and are used to create a door that is flush with the wall. When the doors are closed, the wall has a more uniform and monolithic appearance, a modernist design trait for sure. And when the door is open it's as if a large panel, one of many that the wall is made of, is what opens. Architecturally, the door becomes a piece of the wall instead of being something entirely separate from the wall, as in traditional architectural design. In fact, whereas in traditional architecture the door is a celebrated architectural element that announces the connection between two rooms, in a modern aesthetic the door becomes subservient to the plane of the wall. These hinges and the work to set them are generally more costly than a standard hinge and its installation. A set (typically three or four) of good-quality butterfly hinges will set you back around $50; a set of pivot hinges will likely be $200.
he Slab Door Another modern detail is the slab door with top and bottom pivot hinges in lieu of the typical butterfly type of hinge. The pivot hinges are installed in the floor as well as in the head of the door frame in lieu of the door jambs and are used to create a door that is flush with the wall. When the doors are closed, the wall has a more uniform and monolithic appearance, a modernist design trait for sure.
Nice shelves. The large gap between each shelf prevents an uncluttered look which is a good use of negative space.
Q