5 IKEA hallway ideas to help you create a stylish and functional entryway on a budget

IKEA is one of the most popular destinations for furniture and homeware shopping around the country and perhaps even the world. Loved for its budget-friendly prices, simple, minimalist designs that are easily customisable and easy-to-assemble flat-pack furniture, the Swedish brand can set pretty much any room up for success. This includes your entryway – especially if you're prepped and ready to employ some creative IKEA hallway ideas.

Given the small size of the space, many people don’t know where to start when it comes to incorporating clever hallway ideas into their entryways. The result? This area of our home gets forgotten about and not used to its full potential. But this is where ingenious IKEA hacks, which use the brand’s often simple designs as a base and elevate them into something special, come in handy.

‘Everyone knows how important first impressions are, so no hallway should be neglected,’ confirms Matt Siberry, head of home at Pinterest UK. ‘Interiors-lovers are searching for all sorts of IKEA hacks on Pinterest to help them up their corridor game, with searches for IKEA shoe cabinets, coat racks and hooks on the rise.’

Just in the space of the last two months, Pinterest has recorded a 15% increase in searches for ‘IKEA shoe cabinet’ and a 30% rise in ‘hallway storage’ searches. Meanwhile, the visual discovery engine reports that ‘long narrow hallway decorating’ has been searched for six times more in the last two months. And our IKEA hallway ideas can help with pretty much all of the above.

1. Personalise the popular HEMNES shoe cabinet

If you’re looking for some small hallway storage ideas, then slim shoe cabinets should be at the top of your list as shoes are known to be some of the bulkiest and most difficult to store items. And narrow shoe storage really makes a difference. That’s why the IKEA HEMNES shoe cabinet is one of the brand’s most popular hallway-specific pieces.

‘IKEA's HEMNES shoe cabinet is an ideal piece for a hallway due to its slim profile and ample storage, perfect for keeping shoes tidy in a narrow space,’ says Sam Sutherland, Flitch interior stylist. ‘I’d place the HEMNES shoe cabinet near the entrance for easy access, pairing it with a mirror above to create the illusion of a larger space.’

But you can go even further and get the paint and primer out – which is needed, as you’ll know if you’ve tried to paint IKEA furniture before. You can give the HEMNES shoe storage a bit of a makeover with a fresh lick of paint and perhaps a set of fun handles.

2. Create a feature out of the TRONES shoe cabinets

Who knew that shoe storage ideas could double as a feature wall idea? But that’s exactly what you can create with the help of the modern-looking and bestselling IKEA TRONES shoe cabinets. It's just the type of thing you can come up with once you start thinking about even the most mundane of things creatively and out of the box.

‘Another idea is to wall-mount the TRONES shoe cabinets in a staggered pattern, creating an artistic storage solution that also doubles as a feature wall,’ Sam suggests.

3. Fashion a DIY console table

While you can make your own console table pretty much from any plank of wood and some legs, the IKEA EKBY ALEX shelf comes with built-in drawers which is something that always comes in handy when it comes to both console tables and hallways.

You can even stack two of them on top to get four drawers. And while any fairly long furniture legs will work, we have a bit of a soft spot for hairpin legs. Especially if you can get your hands on such an elevated design as these brass hairpin legs from Amazon.

4. Turn a BILLY bookcase into customised storage

The BILLY bookcase is one of the most popular IKEA products, as well as a favoured target of many IKEA hacks – just take the dreamy library a TikToker has made from three BILLY bookcases to further elevate them. But the BILLY is definitely not limited to librairies. You can incorporate it into pretty much any room or area, and that includes making it into a hallway storage idea.

‘A popular IKEA hack for hallways involves turning the BILLY bookcase into a bespoke storage unit by adding doors, custom handles, and a fresh coat of paint to match your decor,’ Sam says.

5. Lift your hallway storage off the floor

If you’re looking for small hallway ideas, then one of the first orders of business should be lifting things off the floor to avoid a cluttered look which makes any space look even smaller than it already is. And you can do exactly that by opting for wall-mounted pieces like floating shelves, hanging rails and shoe cabinets like the aforementioned TRONES design.

Sam at Flitch has her own personal favourite solution from IKEA, ‘The LACK wall shelf provides a minimalist solution for displaying keys and decorative items without cluttering the area. It could be installed above a bench or hooks to hold small items like post or sunglasses, maximising functionality without compromising on style.’

Our top picks to elevate your IKEA hallway pieces

‘An IKEA hallway offers affordability, versatility, and customisation, with a wide range of products that suit various styles. The modular nature of many IKEA pieces also makes it easy to adapt and expand your storage solutions as your needs change. But mixing IKEA pieces with other products can add a layer of uniqueness and depth, allowing you to personalise the space further while still benefiting from IKEA’s practicality and design,’ Sam concludes.