When I left my ex-husband I had a choice between two studio apartments: one with a big open room on the top floor with gorgeous southern light and a view of the courtyard below, and the other with three smaller spaces, windows staring straight into my neighbor's windows . . . and a long narrow hallway leading from the entrance, past the bathroom, past a closet (that you had to step up to as it was built over the bed which rolled in and out of its hiding place on wheels), and into the main living space.
I chose the apartment with the dungeon-like lack of light, no view, and the long narrow hallway.
The hallway is another reason I'd prefer a home with many smaller spaces as opposed to a more open floor plan with large rooms; the former is more conducive to tunnel-like hallways. I love the suspense of not knowing what is around the corner . . . even when you're intimately familiar with the geography of your home, that hallway retains some mystery while also conveying to visitors that they are entering an intimate place, that they don't know everything, that some doors are sealed to them . . . that there's more to discover.
Also, no matter how much I cherish beautiful light and pretty views, I am one who instinctively craves darkness, hibernation, and burrowing deep into my interior life. I feel safest in cavelike settings. There is more romance and adventure in the underground. The long hallway leads to spaces that are secret, private, and womblike.
Maybe it would be interesting to design a floor plan based on a woman's body . . .
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