HALLWAYS ARE the freeway tunnels of the home—typically unconsidered and unadorned, they blandly deliver people from point A to point Z. In a 2017 Sherwin-Williams survey, hallways came in last when homeowners were asked to rank rooms that they’d fearlessly coat with color, which seems oddly inhibited given how little time people spend in your average passage. “Nobody is sitting there watching the Super Bowl or reading a book,” said New York interior decorator Joe Nahem. “They’re passing through. It’s less than a 20-second experience.”
Lately,...