Designing your home interior can be challenging. Efficient design is more than aesthetics. It also involves practicality, wise usage of space, and safety. Evaluating each room takes effort, time, and knowledge, especially the high traffic areas.
High-traffic areas like kitchens, entryways, and hallways require more effort to design. Due to frequent movements, these spaces are exposed to wear and tear, which makes decorations and furnishings more prone to damage.
If you’re struggling with designing high-traffic areas in your home, here are seven practical tips to help you out.
1. Use Vibrant And Durable Paint
The colors you choose for the busiest areas significantly impact functionality and aesthetics. For instance, you must select premium-quality paint for your trim paint on the entryways and hallways, as these parts are prone to chips and scratches, especially when moving furniture pieces.
Choosing the right paint color keeps the space vibrant and inviting, suitable for your home’s main entrance. On the other hand, picking a durable and long-lasting paint type protects the area from scratches and makes cleaning easier, perfect for busy and moisture-prone areas like kitchens.
Another feature to look for is mildew resistance and waterproofing. These factors are necessary for designing entryways and mudrooms, so the walls can resist moisture even if you come home soaked from the rain or snow.
2. Avoid Bulky Furniture Pieces
The best furniture choices depend on your desired interior design theme. However, you must consider their sizes above the aesthetic features to ensure they’ll perfectly fit the space, especially if placed in high-traffic areas.
Bulky furniture pieces restrict traffic, so avoiding them is the smartest and safest option. They take up too much floor space and create obstructions, leading to accidents. If you’re placing a console table or shoe storage by the entryway, ensure it’s properly leaned on the wall while leaving at least 90cm to 120cm of free space to walk through comfortably.
3. Consider Appliance And Furniture Doors
One common mistake during DIY interior design in high-traffic areas is not paying attention to the space taken by appliance and furniture doors. Leaving enough room to open these doors is crucial to efficiency, so proper spacing is necessary.
When allotting space for appliances and furniture doors, the kitchen requires the most thought and analysis. The standard distance between the counters and island is around 100cm for smaller kitchens and at least 120cm for two people cooking simultaneously. Special needs and elder-friendly kitchens require at least 150cm between counters to provide enough room for navigating a wheelchair.
4. Choose A High-Traction Flooring Material
The flooring material affects the safety of high-traffic areas in your home. Choosing something too glossy can make the space slippery and prone to accidents. As a solution, select high-traction flooring or materials with non-slip surfaces.
High-traction floors provide enough grip to prevent slipping, especially in liquid-prone areas like the entryway and kitchen. Some of the best examples are hardwood floors, matte porcelain tiles, textured luxury vinyl, epoxy flooring, and nylon carpet. These materials balance aesthetics and safety for high-traffic areas, making your home elegant and practical.
5. Keep The Areas Clutter-Free
Proper organization is one of the keys to designing high-traffic areas in your home. Clutter can make a space look small and cramped, adding accident-causing obstructions and other safety hazards. Therefore, making busy spaces clutter-free is imperative.
Building ample storage is one way to keep high-traffic areas clutter-free. Concealed storage spaces like cabinets and drawers are ideal for keeping surfaces clean and organized. The open shelves, tabletops, and other surfaces should only hold stationary decorative pieces to avoid clutter. You may also utilize the area under the stairs to provide more storage for bulky items you want to keep out of sight.
6. Pick Simple And Stable Decorations
A home feels incomplete without decorations. However, over-decorating is a common mistake in an attempt to make the space look more elegant. While doing so works in less busy rooms and feature walls, it’s one thing you must avoid when designing a high-traffic area.
One clever trick in decorating high-traffic areas is picking simple and stable decorations. Avoid decorative pieces that easily fall off or heavy items prone to breakage. Instead, choose ones you can fasten or lean on the wall to avoid knocking them over.
7. Evaluate Traffic During Floor Planning
Designing high-traffic areas in your home go beyond furnishes and decorations. It also involves properly evaluating foot traffic during floor planning. This way, you can distinguish how to navigate the space efficiently.
You may grab a copy of your floor plan when evaluating foot traffic in your home. Then draw lines for frequent pathways or movements within the space. The area with the most foot traffic should always be clear and spacious.
Conclusion
Designing high-traffic areas require making smart design choices. With these tips and tricks, you can enhance the efficiency, safety, and beauty of the busiest spaces in your home.
Article Submitted By Community Writer
