Vibrant Paint Colors for Upstairs Hallways

Warm Shades

• Typically, upstairs hallways aren’t used for anything other than commuting to and from bedrooms, so they're seldom seen by guests and can be ideal for a bit of decorative creativity that you might not feel comfortable experimenting with elsewhere. Warm shades can increase the energy or vibrancy in otherwise plain, lackluster, narrow spaces. Orange walls would brighten a windowless hallway. Vivacious red walls would wake up a tired hall, but may seem a little overwhelming; tone them down with large pieces of light-colored art. Chartreuse or vivid yellow would make a narrow corridor appear wider and a dark one seem sunny. Regardless of the paint hue that you choose, test its authenticity by viewing the paint swatch against the walls, in the hallway’s lighting, at various times of day.

Cool Tones

• Light blues and greens are cool and restful, while walls in cool teal, sea foam or lime are zestier. Use a lively cool tone on the hall walls running parallel, and another on the wall at the end to break up the strong look. The burst of cool colors will help to visually cool an upper-level hallway that's typically warm from rising heat, closed doors and a lack of windows for ventilation. For more contrast, use a complementary warm shade on the wall at the end of the hall, such as fuchsia with aquamarine.

Color Blocking

• When you can’t -- or don’t want to -- choose between a few different wall-paint colors, you could opt to use them together. As long as the hues are visually harmonious or complement each other, such as with a tone-on-tone trio of oranges, or contrasting blue and yellow, use them to form blocks of color: zigzags, stripes, an intertwined tangle of rectangles, or geometric mix of triangles, squares and circles. The look can read as vivacious and invigorating, and appear as art.

The Doors

• Enlist the doors as real estate for adding a second -- or third or fourth -- color to the hallway. For example, you could use an easy-to-look-at analogous trio with light yellow-green on the doors, a placid green on the upper two-thirds of the wall, and a weightier, dark green on the lower third. For something more daring, explore the idea of a primary red or blue to highlight good-looking doors, and primary-yellow walls for emphasis. If you want an interconnected design, paint each door a different yet cohesive color -- mid-purple, yellow, coral and mint, for example -- such as that pulled from hallway art, or upstairs bedrooms. Although these color combinations may seem out of place in the typical lower-level main floor, they can make a refreshing design change on the walls of a more private upstairs setting.