Hallway Storage
Updated
Hallways take a daily beating, yet they get the smallest furniture budget in the house. The piece that earns its keep here does several jobs at once: shoes off the floor, coats off the banister, post and keys off the hall table that wasn't meant to be a hall table. Get the depth right and the rest follows.
The specific number to know is hallway depth. Most British hallways measure 90cm to 120cm wall-to-wall, so a unit deeper than 35cm will narrow the walking line and snag bags. The best hallway pieces sit between 28cm and 35cm deep, which keeps shoes neat without eating the corridor. The Range and Robert Dyas both stock slim shoe cabinets in this footprint between £40 and £150; for solid-wood pieces with a longer life, Furniture in Fashion runs from £100 up.
We compare hallway-storage prices across UK retailers daily, including chests of drawers, narrow benches, cubby units, peg rails and combined shoe-and-coat consoles. The grid below filters by colour, material, and width band, so you can size a piece to your hallway before you fall in love with the photograph. read more…
329 Hallway Storage from 13 UK Retailers in May ’26
Depth before everything else
Hallway depth is what tells you which units will actually fit. Walk a tape measure from skirting to skirting at the narrowest point; subtract 60cm if you want to keep a clear walking line, or 50cm if you're prepared to brush past. The remaining number is your maximum unit depth. In most flats and terraces that lands between 28cm and 35cm, too shallow for a typical chest of drawers (40-50cm) but right for shoe cabinets, peg-and-bench units and slim consoles. The piece that fits the room beats the piece that looks best in the photograph.
Shoes, coats and post in one piece
The most useful hallway buy is the multi-job unit: a flip-front shoe cabinet with a console top for keys and post, or a bench-and-coatrack combo that takes shoes underneath and coats above. The Range stocks three-drawer flip-front cabinets between 28-32cm deep around £80-£140; Robert Dyas runs similar in painted MDF from £40. For a piece that takes daily use and stays straight, Furniture in Fashion's solid oak hallway consoles start around £200 and run to £600 for the wider units.
Where the value sits
Sub-£100 is the bracket for painted MDF and chipboard with a vinyl wrap. Drawers will move on bearings rather than runners, hinges are the soft kind, and after three or four years the corners chip. £100-£250 buys you a softwood frame with veneered tops, proper drawer slides and a finish that stands up to a wet umbrella. Above £300, expect solid oak, ash or pine with mortise-and-tenon joinery, the kind that survives moving house twice. Aosom UK plays well in the entry tier (£15-£190); Cheap Furniture Warehouse runs the £25-£145 mid-bracket; for the longer-life pieces, Furniture in Fashion is the steadier pick.
Materials that suit a high-traffic spot
Painted MDF is fine in a low-use hall but chips at boot height; expect to touch up the front edge every two years. Veneered chipboard costs less still and tolerates fewer knocks. Solid wood (oak, ash, beech, pine) is the long-game choice; it picks up the odd scuff but doesn't crumble at the corner. Powder-coated steel and rattan inserts both work for shoe cubbies, with steel for damp climates and rattan for warmth, but a fully rattan cabinet collects dust and is harder to clean. For pieces that live next to a back door or porch, prefer water-resistant finishes.
What we'd skip
The narrow tower units that stack four pairs of shoes in a 25cm-wide column look clever in the photograph and are uncomfortable to use; getting the third shoe in means tilting it. Cheap fabric-fronted shoe cabinets with magnetic catches lose the magnets within a year. Built-in coat-rack-with-bench combos that fix to the wall behind the front door fight any direction the door opens. None of these are unfixable, but the better pieces in the same price bracket simply work better.
