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Stop right there.

Apartment Building's common spaces, corridors and fire escapes are not there for you to fill with furniture, plants, benches, bicycles, strollers, boxes, hooks, toys, umbrellas, coats, etc - not even ones that fold up and "out of the way".

That stuff belongs in your apartment, on your balcony/patio or in your storage space.

Two words:
Fire Code.

I think it's a great idea, but I think it should be in your apartment, not in the building hallway.

When someone falls and hits there head on your little seat, can we say lawsuit...lol. Not the best idea.

I'm not familiar with the rules and regulations of common areas in American apartment buildings, but I would go out on a limb and suggest that screwing large pieces of furniture to the walls would be a bit of no-no.

I think it would not work in most cases but it probably depends on the layout of the hallway and what the management will approve. If it in any way obstructed the hallway, it would not be good. This doesn't look like it obstructs anything. Perhaps they would up the rent for the extra square footage, however, LOL!

Personally, I have no problem with stuff in the common spaces. However, as should be immediately evident to you from the tenor of the comments thus far and from general knowledge of people... BAD IDEA. People go ballistic over other people's stuff in the common space, and that's not even permanent stuff. You had best be very sure your neighbors LOVE this idea before you try it.

common space is not for your furniture or decor. we have had people try this in our building - no way!

I would love to keep my bike outside the apartment in the hallway, but I think the co-op board is going to veto that idea right quick... my new strategy is going to be to beg them to let me keep it locked up somehow in the basement of the building.

Wow, this post went depressing in a big hurry. I love the built-in in the picture. In a small building, with only a couple of units on each floor, an idea like this might work. Sometimes older buildings were built with extra space on landings not for fire-code reasons (the codes weren't the same when the buildings were built) but for aesthetic ones.

If anyone manages to put their stuff in a building's private space, you must let us all know how you got management to grant their permission. And then how long it remained before someone stole it.

If you could, why install a bench when you could install a fire-breathing dragon or goldfish lamp a la Mame Dennis?

Considering we can't even get a bike rack - I'd say, no.

It is a common space, unless you know that all your neighbors want it and are willing to let all your neighbors use it too it seems kinda rude to put stuff out in the hallway. My neighbor has a doormat in the hallway, that is where you should draw the line.

I'm not too keen on people storing things in the commonspace. My neighbors keep their bikes in the little courtyard, and I hate it. I think they should have to keep their bikes in their apt, or on their balcony, or at a minimum behind the building where the cars are parked. (Also, they are currently tromping through the little ivy patch to lean their bikes against the building. The place where they are tromping is bare of ivy at the present, but I've been trying to get the ivy to regrow there, and their tromping/bikes is foiling my ivy-regrowth efforts. I want the ivy to regrow densely so it looks nice, and to keep the neighbor's cat from using it as a litterbox.)