Hallway Table

A hallway table may be a difficult choice to make because of the limited space available and the need for flow and harmony between the furniture pieces found in the hallway. The decision must be taken carefully, especially if there is no other furniture in the hall. The fact that there is nothing there when you decide to buy the table is good because you have the option of decorating any way you want.

Hallway tables can be found in two basic models, with or without drawers. When they have drawers there will be two of them only. Sometimes though, they have a shelf somewhere around the middle of the legs. They are quite simple and they are thin and tall. The decoration on these tables is basically on their wooden grain or sometimes they have gold leaf accents but in general they are not decorations themselves, they are bases to put decorations on.

Measure the width of the hall where you want to use the table; people should be able to walk by it without turning sideways or touching the edge o the table. If this is not possible the hall is not wide enough for a table. There are extra thin tables that don’t have any drawers, you can use these if space is an issue, so don’t lose hope yet. The thinnest hall table I have measured, that is stable and will hold any decorations, is twelve inches wide.

Anyway having decided that the hall has enough room for the table, it is time to decide what you want to do, what do you want this table to look like and how this will contrast with the remainder of the hallway. It is important to keep in mind that the decorations should flow; you can’t just lay this table in the middle of the hallway with nothing around it or too much around it and nothing on the rest of the hall.

The first thing you must do, on a virgin hall, is to set your table where you want it to be, just the table with nothing on it. Stand back and observe it, don’t worry yet if it looks out of place sitting there by itself. Now that the hallway table is in place try a chair on each side of it, the chairs should match with the table and should not be too fancy. They should not take attention away from the table but share it with the table.

A lamp would also look nice on top of the hallway table, not too high not too low. The lamp shade’s edge should be within the table’s width. If the edge goes out of the table, someone walking by may knock it off. A large mirror will look great centered over the table, especially if they are about the same size in length. To complete the hallway we will need a couple of plants or tall decorations at each end of the hall to create some contrast with the hallway table in the middle. This way there will be variations in the halls width in each end and in the center. There will be a flow established instead of just one clump of things in the middle of the hall.