In-Between Rooms: Designing for Pass Through Spaces

I don't believe every space in a room needs decoration or a real purpose. However, if space is feeling crunched and you are looking for more ways to adapt your space, don't overlook the "in-between" rooms. A strip of hallway between the bedrooms, a covered patio, inside the front door, these in-between spaces get passed through dozens of times a day and often hold an opportunity for creating additional function.

Scandinavian homes are great at using space as they were historically small, and no square footage could afford to be wasted. Every threshold, passage, and landing had to earn its keep. That discipline produced some wonderfully useful ideas in home design, and most of them translate directly to desert living.

The Threshold

Scandinavian homes treat the entry as a real room, even if it’s small. There is a word for the classic version: the vindfang, literally the "wind catch," a small buffer room between the front door and the home that traps weather before it gets in. A desert entry does the same work against different enemies. Heat, glare, and red dust all want to follow you inside.

Designing one takes less than it seems:

A great doormat. Nordic entries treat the mat as the first line of defense against snow and rain. Using an indoor and outdoor doormat can not only look great but keep some of the red desert dust out of your home.
A bench or stool to make it easy to sit and remove shoes.
A long-handled shoehorn hanging by the door, a fixture in nearly every Nordic entry, helps with removing shoes.
A clothes brush on a hook beside it, for the quick brush-down on the way out.
A tray or low basket beneath the bench, so shoes have a place instead of a pile.
Hooks for hats, bags, and the dog's leash.
A small shelf or bowl for keys, sunglasses, and the things that you want to keep handy.
A mirror, which does double work: a last glance on the way out, and helps bounce light.

The Passage

Hallways are a great space to look at with new eyes. Depending on the width, it could double as everything from a library, gallery, to clothing storage.

Ways to bring a hallway to life:

Create an art gallery with your favorite prints. Hang them gallery style or get creative and fill the space.
A runner adds warmth, softens footsteps, and pulls a long space together. Try a bold pattern.
Swap the builder-grade flush mount for a statement light you'll love to see.
Hidden hooks or a folding rack can create space for laundry day.
A candleholder and matches on a console or shelf.
If the hall is wide enough, a bookshelf, console, or wardrobe can add extra storage.
A wide stair landing can hold a reading chair and a small lamp.

The Room With a Sky Ceiling

The desert's great contribution to the in-between family is the courtyard, a room whose ceiling is the sky. Spanish and Southwest builders understood centuries ago that a walled outdoor space, shaded through the hottest hours, becomes the coolest and most private room in the house during the mild ones. Sweden's version is the uterum, an unheated glass room used from spring to fall, a way of sitting in the landscape without surrendering to the weather. The two ideas are mirror images, and both come from the same conviction that the edge of the house is worth designing.

Treat these spaces as rooms:

Outdoor furniture built to live outside year-round, arranged for conversation the way you'd arrange a living room
An outdoor rug to define the seating zone and soften concrete or flagstone underfoot
A good tray, the outdoor room's moving part. In Scandinavian homes everything for coffee outside travels on one tray, out at seven, back in by nine.
Layered light for the evening hours: a portable lamp carried out at sundown, and candles in lanterns or hurricane glass between wanting candles outside and using them
Potted plants at varied heights
A small side table within reach of every seat to easily set drinks

Living in the Edges

Walk your own home once with fresh eyes and count the spaces you pass through without seeing. Each one is a small design project waiting, and most need less than you think.

If one of your in-between spaces needs more than a fresh eye, our design services and trade program are here to help.