Oh, dear. In this case, I'll be more explicit. One little flower on either side of the door will not improve the looks of the house. Make a real bed that extends from the sidewalk under the window to the left that is 4' deep. Kill or remove the grass, dig in amendments, and make a clear, clean line between grass and the flower bed. (It can be maintained with a string trimmer.) Plant a line of large hostas along the back. They are NOT "out of season" in Austin right now. They are perennial. (I'm pretty sure that they have a VERY short dormancy in Austin, but I can't remember that clearly.) However, you still might have to wait until spring to find them if you only want to shop as Home Depot. In front of them, plant a bunch of annuals. These will die every year, so they have to be replanted each season. In October, plant pansies in front of the hostas. Don't plant just one row. Plant three staggered, with the center line offset. Plant them pretty close together. When it warms and the pansies begin looking ragged, pull them out and plant periwinkles, if you can find them, and if you can't then plant impatiens. The New Guinea type will give you more "bang." (I advise periwinkles over impatiens in this case because they are lower care, whereas impatiens in your climate need more water.) You can even find periwinkles, impatiens, and pansies at Wal-mart, let alone Lowe's or Home Depot. If you would rather not mow under the palm, you can underplant it with jasmine. On the right side of your front door, go out at a 45 degree angle 3' and there you can plant a skyrocket juniper.

I have the same hall way, so really loved everyone's ideas! I have thought about clearing out a closet on one wall, removing the doors and putting a sleeping closet in there that stays open to the hallway to give it more width. It would only be cot sized because of the depth possibly with book shelves and a light looking like one of those European wall niches with a bed. Because I love rustic, I would layer it with a collection of wool blankets, fun pillows and maybe a pictures and/or old postcards. I have lots of guest and a child could sleep on the cot. Now, to figure out what to do with what is in the closet! What do you think of that idea? My hallway is actually the same color. I've also been thinking of running a 2 pieces of wood down the hall apart enough to hang pictures between them in an effort to make a more tidy gallery, but fear it would lengthen and skinny up the look of the hallway. If the ceiling was darker than the walls would it cause the widith to look wider? Here is a link that might be useful: Winchuck River Store

OK, so like this, then? The design challenge is that big empty space above the door, so I faked a window up there. (Although, due to the lack of symmetry and different heights of the bottoms of the windows from left section to right section, perhaps an oval window above the door would break up the three sections better. The three sections being the section to the left of the door, the door section, and the section to the right of the door - we ignore the garage section in this comment.) The palladium I drew would end up fighting with the asymmetry left side to right side. An oval would not be mimicking either side, if you know what i mean.) And don't ever feel the need to apologize for split levels, they have some really awesome use of space due to this (BIG windows and lots of daylight in the lower level). You have a beautiful home, beautifully kept. On getting notices of replies: you have to go to PREFERENCES and "allow for other users to email you." If this feature is turned off, then you will not get notifications of new posts. This post was edited by beautybutdebtfree on Thu, Apr 24, 14 at 19:43

I like that runner. AND I need a cabinet like that for shoes, too! So, to answer your question, yes, I think you are on the right track. A rug with blues, browns, and greens would tie everything together. Keep looking. You will find it-and don't settle for something you don't love. :). Oh, and don't reject out of hand polypropylene rugs there. They are soft, have great colors, and wear like iron. Easy clean, too which is great with boys and dogs (ask me how I know). We had one in our family room which was also our most-used entrance to the house and now our son has it in his home. Also, Rugs USA is having a 65% off sale for Columbus Day. Might be fun to browse.