Hallway design in Batumi: wardrobe, beach shoes and lighting

The order of coming in: where the plan starts

We draw a hallway around what a person does in the first two minutes at home. You open the door, put your bag down, take off your shoes, hang up your jacket, put down the keys and glance in the mirror. If these steps follow one another along the wall, even two people with suitcases don't get in each other's way at the door.

So the place for taking shoes off goes closest to the door: a seat and an open shelf for wet shoes. Next come hooks for what you have just taken off, then a closed wardrobe, and the mirror goes by the way out, where people pause before leaving. Hallway design in Batumi almost always starts with this sequence, and the colours and materials are chosen afterwards.

In new builds the hallway is rarely a separate room. More often it is the start of a corridor or the corner of a studio by the door, and we mark out the entrance area with the flooring and the lighting. How the passage to the bedrooms with its row of doors works is described on the page about corridor renovation in an apartment, and the work at the entrance itself, from the porcelain tiles to accepting the wardrobe, on the page about hallway renovation.

Dimensions by the front door

The table shows the dimensions we work from. This is our practice, and we adjust it to the family's height and the width of the hallway.

If the hallway is narrow, we don't squeeze a 60 cm wardrobe into it. Coats and jackets move to a recess or a walk-in wardrobe, and by the door we leave a slim shoe cabinet and hooks. How to ventilate and light a walk-in wardrobe like this is covered on the page about walk-in wardrobe design.

Shoes after the beach and wet things

In summer shoes come back from the beach full of sand and pebbles, in winter wet from the rain, and they don't go straight into a closed cupboard. So the plan always has an open area by the door: a slatted shelf on legs for 4–6 pairs, raised enough to sweep underneath, with hooks above it. We work out its length from the number of people living there, and in a rental apartment from the number of guests it sleeps.

The doormat can be sunk into the floor. We leave a recess in the screed for an entrance mat, with its top flush with the tiles: nobody trips over the edge, and the sand stays in the pile. This has to be on the floor plan before the screed goes down, because it can't be done afterwards.

The wall behind the hooks is covered with something that wet fabric can't spoil: tiles, a panel or washable paint. A separate bottom drawer for beach things is useful: towels, a sun umbrella, a beach mat and a bag go in there rather than on the seat. In a family with children, the flippers and buckets go there too.

The hallway wardrobe: what the furniture maker gets

We give the furniture maker a wardrobe drawing with the dimensions of every section, the heights of the shelves and hanging rails, the type of doors and the positions of the ventilation grilles. It marks the sockets inside the wardrobe, the consumer unit with full access, and the switch that a side panel must not cover. Different furniture makers price the same item from a drawing like this, so their quotes can be compared.

• a section for clothes on hangers, nearest the way out;
• a section for the vacuum cleaner, with a socket for charging it or for a robot vacuum's dock;
• a large suitcase about 75–80 cm tall at the bottom, hand luggage and seasonal things in the top cupboards;
• a narrow section for the ironing board and a clothes airer.

A furniture maker may also do their own 3D of the wardrobe, usually as part of their own order. Their model shows only the wardrobe, while our drawing is tied to the walls, sockets, lighting and door. How we order and fit wardrobes made to measure is covered on the page about wardrobes and walk-in wardrobes made to fit the recess.

Lighting and the mirror by the entrance

By the door you need light on the floor and on the shoes, not just on the ceiling. Besides downlights over the walkway, we often add lighting under a wall-hung shoe cabinet or the bottom shelf of the wardrobe. The floor under the furniture stops being a dark gap, and a narrow hallway looks wider.

We place the mirror so that it reflects the door to a room or a window, not the bathroom door or the shoe cabinet. A full-length mirror opposite the entrance doubles the depth of a small hallway, but it is the first thing everyone who comes in looks into, so we check in advance what it will show. Every point, from the wall light by the mirror and the motion sensor to the socket by the shoe cabinet, is on the wall elevations with its height.

For yourself and for rental

In your own apartment the hallway stores more: the whole family's seasonal clothes, sports gear, the vacuum cleaner, a stock of bottled water. We take the wardrobe up to the ceiling and add drawers for the small things that would otherwise pile up on the seat.

A guest in a short-term rental needs something else: open space for two suitcases, hooks for everyone, and a mirror and a shelf for keys right by the door. We keep the closed wardrobe small and give part of it to the owner and the cleaner: a lockable section for spare linen and cleaning products. We choose doors that let suitcase marks wash off with a sponge. Other solutions for apartments like this are on the page about designing an apartment for short-term rental.

Common hallway mistakes

• the hooks hang so low over the shoe cabinet that a wet raincoat lies on the shoes;
• hinged wardrobe doors hit the front door or open across the walkway;
• the mirror reflects the bathroom door;
• there is nowhere to sit, so people take their shoes off hopping on one foot;
• wet shoes are put away in a closed cabinet, and the consumer unit is hidden behind a wardrobe with no door of its own.

How much hallway design costs in Batumi

Design for a hallway of up to 8 m² costs from 960 to 1,440 ₾ per room. We price it at a rate per square metre, but with a minimum fee: even a small hallway needs a plan, wall elevations, a wardrobe drawing and lighting. The price covers storage for shoes and wet things, 3D of the entrance area, a wardrobe drawing for the furniture maker, and a lighting and socket plan. This is the designer's work, and the furniture and renovation are paid for separately. 3D is included here because when a hallway is designed on its own, the main item in it is the built-in wardrobe, and it is worth seeing before you order it. In a whole-apartment project we more often show the hallway as a collage, as explained in the comparison of 3D rendering and a collage.

As a guide, made-to-measure hallway furniture with a wardrobe, coat rack and shoe cabinet costs from 1,140 to 1,800 ₾ per set, a hallway renovation from 620 ₾ per m² of floor, and a made-to-measure mirror, installed, from 480 ₾ per m². 3D of one room without drawings costs 660–960 ₾ on its own.

The price goes up for a hallway that runs into a corridor with several doors, a wardrobe with top cupboards and lots of sections, a doormat recess and moving the consumer unit. It is lower if the furniture is ready-made and you need a plan with lighting and sockets. The final cost is set after the survey and once the set of sheets is agreed, and the number of revision rounds is written into the contract.