As you all know I have always been a huge fan of panelling, after creating a panelled wall in our master bedroom (see here for tutorial) I have managed to incorporate it in to 3 places in the house and I have no intention of stopping there!

We have a long and thin, traditional 1930s hallway with windows on the stair side and a long blank wall running along the other. The house would have once had a separate dining and living room but these rooms were knocked through and the door filled in by the previous owner which we love, but it did leave us with a very long blank wall where a door once sat. We decided to go for a taller and more rectangular panelling than we have previously done. I actually took my inspiration from the panels in the front door, being a total sucker for period features I always try and incorporate traditional aspects into the home where possible.

As soon as my husband had got over the fact that I had convinced him to panel yet another wall, we headed to B&Q for supplies. We had already drawn and planned how many strips we would like on the wall and from that, worked out our spacing and height. We decided on 1400mm Lengths that were 80mm wide. We brought a 3mm thick large sheet of MDF from B&Q and had it cut using their in house cutting service. The MDF was only £13 and gave us enough strips of wood to do the panelling twice if we wanted to. It always impresses me how affordable panelling can be.

We used Gripfil and pin nails to attach the strips to the wall. We started with the bottom horizontal pannels that ran along the skirting, because we had all of the strips cut to the same size we needed to join strips together to do this, we got them as close to each other as possible and used a finger of wood filler on the joins where required. We then began the vertical panels, and then the top horizontal panels at the end. The project came together really quickly and we had the panelling attached and together in around an hour. We used a nail punch, to punch in any nails so they were flush with the surface, used a small amount of wood filler on any joins and then began priming. We always use Zinsser BIN for priming.

We have now painted and almost (story of our lives) completed the hallway and landing renovations. We painted the walls using The Decorating Centre Online hard wearing matte colour matched to Farrow and Ball sulking room pink. I am so pleased with the result. Panelling really is a fantastic way to transform a space on a small budget. If you give it a try, please do let me know how you get on!

Chynna xxx