Deb: Hey, if you like hallways more power to you in building that hallway.

They are only a waste if you like openness and simply could not find a way to open up the passage way. I feel like most people around here fall into that category, including myself.

They aren't terrible expensive per square foot when they are between two rooms. It's just another wall and maybe a couple of more doors. People don't like them generally because they remove square footage from the rooms; the bigger the better right?

Hall away if you like hallways.

Of course, you should have halls if you like them. In fact, you could do a custom home with only halls and no rooms--a sort of new type of open plan!

In my mind halls (corridors) are about efficiency. For example, what percentage of a design is actually useable for a specific life style purpose, as opposed to space necessary to travel from one place to get to another?

The greater the efficiency of a design, the more one's budget is going towards spaces that support family life (and the less goes towards circulation.

If budget and efficiency are secondary, then corridors are a really good thing. Just some personal thoughts.

I live in an older house but it has no hallways. The complaints I hear about hallways are they tend to be dark and you need to figure out how to add light and they can be hard to decorate.

There are no reliable rules of thumb for the design of a house.

As for hallways there are good ones and bad ones.

Unfortunately many of the latter type are posted on the forum which shouldn't be surprising since many of the layouts are reworked internet plans.

The danger with reworking a pre-existing plan is that the original central concept (the "parti") is often lost and I've learned in my long career that a design without a parti will never come together.

In a recent thread where everyone was nagging on the hallways (I think I started it, sorry); if you look at that plan, there were hallways just to be hallways.

This is what I think when I see those type of hallways--I am an animal being herded somewhere (but, I grew up on a pig farm, so there were a lot of corridors to get them from place to place...)

And, generally, the hallways people don't like are too narrow and force you to go somewhere (if someone else needs to use the hallway).

A central hall is generally not what we object to when we comment on hall space/floor space being wasted.

I guess what I am trying to say is, if you want an open layout, then you should have these halls that take you explicitly from place to place--that is a waste of space. If you have a more closed room preference, then a hall is a necessity. In an open layout though, you can go from place to place in the house without the need for wall restrictions (you still have to account for the walking paths when planning though, so you can't get by with a 12x12 living room if there are 3 destinations around the room). Even in an open plan, there will probably still be hallways.

And when you design with hallways, you certainly want to make sure you can maneuver furniture through them.

Thank you all - lots to think about here.

LawPaw I really do like openness - there's 2 of us living in a 4 br 2 story house and 90% of our waking hours when home are spent in a combined open kitchen, eating area, family room so we'll do a variation on that theme

virgilcarter - I'm going to try and calculate % of space for circulation - that's one very tangible way to evaluate where $ is going.

debrak2008 - this particular plan does not have dark corridor issues - thankfully we've spent time in a model at different hours of the day. Of course different siting makes for different light.

Renovator8 - you got me - had to look that one up. I believe the main parti of this design, even though it's an off the shelf plan, is a really good fit for who we are, how we live and how we anticipate living. I don't kid myself, however that there will be plenty for me to chew on once everyone here gets a crack at it!! Hopefully there can be adjustments made that we already anticipate and others that may be suggested without compromising what works well for us.

kirkhall - yup - you caught me! You speak and I listen but that's a testament to your ability to explain why things won't work and suggest what might be better. We all have history that informs what feels comfortable (or not) to us but I won't even try to compete with herding pigs - that trumps all! I grew up in a long ranch that my parents designed and built - never thought I'd want it again but here I am trying to modify that house for our needs.

I too tried to avoid hallways to save square footage, but am also building a split bedroom ranch and found that they are absolutely a necessity. I didn't want bedroom doors opening directly into the public spaces. So we have a 4ft by 15ft hall that takes us from the kitchen to the powder room, then the master on the left, then the laundry on the end at the right, then the garage. I didn't want guests going to the powder room and then looking into my bedroom.

Same with the kids wing. About the same size hall- with a linen closet at the end, and a bathroom between the two kids rooms. This gives privacy, and an additional sound barrier (hallway) for the kids. I like it.

Hallways also provide a transition from one part of the house to the next.

A friend of mine remodeled an apartment that had a large bedroom/bath area opening off each side a central living dining kitchen area--the doors to the bedroom were in the wall between the living area and each bedroom.

He created a hallway where one walked out of the LR down a hall and then into the bedroom from the farther end. It took a bit of square footage out of each bedroom and not only did it create a sense of separation, many people thought the apartment was actually larger because you had to walk down a hallway to get to the bedroom rather than the door opening next to the sofa.

We avoided hallways as we'd rather have conditioned sq feet to live in, not walk through, so where we have a "hallway" between the LR and dr to get to the brs, it is really an open space that can be used by either room and it makes the 2 rooms feel larger than they are, and you can see light from front and back making the rooms bright. Doing so allowed us to build smaller but feel bigger.

It also allows for greater circulation throughout the rooms. Hallways tend to be dark, narrow and one way to dead ends whereas I wanted our house to circulate.

Here is the "hallway" between the library and DR set off by the columns and the flooring and ceiling treatment, but largely open.

Looking at it from the other side as more of the hallway function to get to the BRs in the back...

This post was edited by AnnieDeighnaugh on Sat, Feb 8, 14 at 10:16

Yes, that is something else about a hallway--you should be able to tell where you are going before you head down it... There could be a window, a doorway, or something, but a hallway that stares at a blank wall the the other end (or at a turn in the hallway) is too claustrophobic for me.

I think I'm with the majority here.

First, I don't see an entryway and a hallway in quite the same light. An entryway is more purposeful than a hallway. It probably contains a staircase, a closet and other "welcome to our home" items. In contrast, a hallway is just a way to reach the bedrooms.

Second, I prefer to keep hallways to a minimum because they have the feel of "wasted space". Each of us has only X amount of resources, and when we expend them towards a hallway, we're decreasing the amount of living space we can have. Living space is more open, better lighted . . . just nicer. Thus, I'd rather have, for example, an open living room and a "walkway" behind the sofa rather than a dedicated hallway. The same amount of space may be devoted to "just walking", but an open space makes the room feel larger, and walking there is more pleasant than walking through an enclosed hallway.

Finally, in spite of what I've said above, hallways cannot be discarded altogether. In certain spots we do need a few steps of hallway to keep a bedroom private or to provide necessary space for a room to fit. So the goal isn't to eliminate hallways . . . it's to minimize them.

I like short hallways...they give you a place for pictures and a bit of privacy walking to the powder room. My grandmother's friend did some screen testing in Hollywood back in the 40s and she had some wonderful photos in her hall. :)

That being said, I don't like long hallways....they tend to be dark and feel like an office corridor. There are often too many doors and not enough light.

I don't mind hallways. I don't like walking through the middle of rooms to get to another room. I don't mind walking along the edge or corner of a room, just not through the middle of a room. I also don't like bedroom or bathroom doors that open from a "public" room.

We have a long house, so we have hallways on both levels to get to the bedrooms. We could have made the main level hallway much smaller if we were willing to have an open living room, but we wanted to have one fur free room in the house. We also needed walls for the antique furniture we have. The back of casegoods is usually not finished enough to be exposed to the room. The family room, kitchen and dining room are all open with no hallway though. The hallways are on the "private" side of the house.

I prefer this

And this

To this ...

And this

Which, now that I am looking at these, I understand why we can't find anything and have decided to build. These plans are the standard for new homes and older homes are moldy basements, which I can't do because of a mold allergy.

This post was edited by nightowlrn on Sat, Feb 8, 14 at 23:57

When I was a kid, I remember going to my Aunt and Uncle's home all the time. They had it built probably in the 50s I'm guessing. It was a huge home for it's day as my Uncle was quite well off. One end of the home had all the bedrooms off of a long hallway. I absolutely love that home and if I could build any home of my dreams, I would rebuild their home exactly as it is. I suppose as today's homes go it would seem out of date but as far as I'm concerned, newer is not always better!

I think the main reasons people dislike hallways are 1.) The perception they are "wasted space"...every square foot that is hallway is a square foot that *ISN'T* bedroom or kitchen or whatever. This is particularly a problem in small urban apartments. 2.) The current fad is "open floorplans" and people prefer to have one room flow into another.

Personally, I *HATE* open floor plans. Without hallways, the only way to get to a room is through another. This causes you to lose privacy. I've been to houses where the only way to get to a bathroom was through someone's room and it is awkward. (Also, bathrooms with two doors to different rooms are often a substitute for halls, but people forget to close and lock one of the doors when using them...) I also know folks who had problems bringing dates home when their roommate was hanging out and being loud and annoying in the room you needed to cross to get to their room. It's also harder to relegate one room to storage or messy activities if everyone has to walk through that room to get anywhere. Hallways provide a way to separate rooms and get to rooms without crossing through someone's bedroom. They are a must for any large dwelling you share with people who can be annoying. (Roomates, children). Open floorplans are great for compulsively neat people who live alone and entertain a lot, but I find them impractical for living. I think part of the reason they are so popular is they look gorgeous when the house is emptied and cleaned to show prospective buyers...but they are like those clothes you see Supermodels wear. They don't look as good with you in them.

Oddly, I also hate foyers and entryways. They seem to serve no real function. If the entryway only leads to one room, why not just extend that room?

Here is a link that might be useful: All-Foyer Mansion

Our house is a very open plan- with a hallway. In our case, we have a panoramic view out the back, so all of our main rooms are in the back. You have to get there somehow. The foyer and hallway have the master bath/closet behind one wall; the basement stairs and a closet on the other.

Our foyer is modest by GW standards- just big enough to receive a few guests at a time. I like to have a modest entry, then gradually reveal more impressive rooms as you walk through the house. Our kitchen is the least 'public' space, but should be the most impressive. We love kitchens!

I lived in a 1920's built central entrance colonial where the rooms came off a central corridor and it was wonderful.
My mother and her husband bought a home built in 2006, An Allison Ramsey design, that has so much hall that it feels as if the whole house is hallway, and the wasted space is enormous. And the door to the back porch from the living room doesn't line up with the hallway, so furniture arrangement in the living room is close to impossible. That house has turned me off of hallways forever.

A hallway, particularly an entry hall or reception room, should have some of these characteristics:
Naturally lit
View outdoors
View into connecting spaces
Reinforce the architectural style; this is the first indoor space that guests see, so it sets the tone for the rest of the house, and should provide a comforting transition between out and in.
Some sense of balance or symmetry in the broadest sense.
It should not consist of whatever space was left over after the principal rooms and the stairwell were carved out, because then it is simply an unplanned accident.
Casey