Hall & Hallway Mirrors

Mirrors for the hall

Halls are narrow, usually windowless and always the first thing anyone sees. A mirror fixes all three problems at once: it borrows daylight from whatever room it faces, it makes a narrow space read as wider, and it gives you somewhere to check yourself before you open the front door.

Where to hang it

On the long wall, not the end wall – a mirror on the end of a narrow hall makes the corridor look longer and thinner, while one on the side wall makes it look wider. If there is a door or a fanlight throwing daylight in, hang the mirror where it can catch that light and pass it on. Above a console or hall table, size the mirror to the table: 70 to 90 per cent of its width, with 15 to 25 cm between them.

Full length or head and shoulders?

If the hall is where you check yourself on the way out, go full length: a mirror 140 to 170 cm tall with the bottom edge 30 to 40 cm above the floor. If space is tight, a tall narrow mirror on the wall beside the door does the same job in less width. Where the mirror is mainly there for light, a round or arch shape above a console reads as friendlier and takes up less wall – see round mirrors and arch mirrors.

Shape and finish

A tall rectangle is the workhorse. An arch softens a hall full of doors and architraves. A large mirror is the strongest move if the hall is genuinely narrow. Frameless keeps a small space calm; a black or champagne gold anodised frame ties the mirror to the door furniture if you would rather it read as a piece.

Fixing and safety

Halls are busy, so fix at several points into something solid and consider adding safety film – the pane then stays in one piece instead of falling as shards. On a plasterboard wall use heavy-duty cavity fixings or screw into the studs. If nothing in the range fits the wall you have, the cut-to-size configurator makes rectangles and free shapes up to 200 cm to the millimetre. Delivery is free anywhere in the Republic of Ireland, Dublin, Cork and Galway included.