Make an entrance

Tiffany Duggan of Studio Duggan opens the door planning and styling a small hallway

THE entranceway is your first experience of a home, so you want it to set the right tone. It needs to be welcoming, but also because it is quite literally the artery of the house, it has to connect with all the rooms it leads to.

■I put a lot of thought into the design of the hallway from the very start of a project. You've got to get the flow feeling right, the views, and how it marries into the adjacent spaces. It's like moving pieces around on a chessboard until you've got everything just where you want it.

■There are lots of design challenges with hallways. In many city houses, hallways are narrow, tend to be quite dark and can often lack architectural features. So, it doesn't work well just to paint the space in white - you need to take a more considered and layered approach.