I don't have pictures but think a hallway is a great spot for a wall of family photos and history.

I think you need to contain your artwork to one side of the hallway. Putting it on both sides will contribute to the feeling of it being narrow. I also think that you need to keep it simple.

I like your rugs, btw. :)

We also have a long hallway and did something very similar to your idea. DH used to collect black and white prints by well known photographers, and we have placed a simple arrangement of half a dozen of those prints along the uninterrupted side of the hall to create a gallery wall.

I have an L shaped hallway in our lower level, with legs 15ft and 21ft long. In the first leg, I had bookcases built in a niche along the left wall. There is a backless bench with 8 antique etchings featuring close-ups of European architecture above the bench.

In the second leg, I'm about to have bookcases line the left wall. For now, there is a dresser with family photographs and on the right wall, hand tinted photographs of our children.

Not much help for you since both hallways are over 5 feet wide, but may help someone else.

I agree with the above poster that said keep artwork to one side of the hallway. It will become claustrophobic if on both. I would use whichever wall comes into sight first when entering hallway. If there are two entrances on the end closets to us in the photo above, I would use the wall you see most often.

Keep frames and subject matter similar. I also would stick to medium size (too many small will clutter and too large will swallow the hallway).

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks for the suggestions about only decorating one wall. That had not occurred to me.

TXhottie - The rugs were an Overstock buy. I seem to be getting many of my rugs from there.

I have a long, narrow hallway that was in need of something. A large framed print or painting overwhelmed the space as did a large Japanese cloth I hung there for a while.

I've traveled from Alaska to Antarctica and many places in between. I decided to take some of my favorite photos that I've shot, convert them to black and white and hang them in a simple frame on a straight line. Below is the result.

It was a very inexpensive project, somewhere around $60 including the B&W luster coat prints on true black and white paper (MPix.com) and frames (Michael's frame sale).

This is the only shot I have of almost the entire length of the hall.

Closeups.

I'm very please with the way it all came out.

Jodi-

jodi--it looks nice!!!

oceangirlme-no offense but we have a similar hall. i changed all the moulding and doors to white and boy does it look 100% better-doesnt look as dark

Thanks Lilbit77!

I can't resist jumping in because we had an exceptionally long narrow hallway without windows in our very first home, a Spanish-bungalow duplex. Our paultry decorating fund went into the rooms opening off the dark shadowy hall, which were very sunny and bright. All frames and walls were already an off white and the wall-to-wall a rich deep moss green the salesman told our landlady was that yucky olive that was so popular. The light was an iron fixture almost certainly original to the bungalow. That's it--dark, cool, calm, quiet. Sounds boring, but it was beautifully simple in spite of my intentions and a perfect transition from and to the rooms opening off. Everything looked better because of it. That hall had such a wonderful character of its own that I even sat down in it a couple times to enjoy its calm.

So, one color for walls/frames/doors, lovely rugs, fine architectural light fixtures (the ones you have?), and...nothing else?

BTW, where our hall jogged at the end, and continued another 5 feet out of sight, I decorated that little hall segment as if it were its own destination--bookcase, painting above, lamp--creating a suite out of it and the only bath and our bedroom that opened off it. That worked very well also and made it seem important enough to walk all that way.