It may seem strange that I’ve started the hallway when we’re still working on the kitchen, I’ve not completed the curtains in the hallway, or the final couch upholstery (I always wait for my hubby to be travelling for work and the children’s to be in school to sew), and even the dining room isn’t at the point I’d like it to be. However, having finished the Art Noufaux window (how to here) on our front door I thought to myself that on days when I can’t get a lot else done I can do a small section at a time.
So here’s how I’ve started to give our hallway a more classic, French Provincial look along with that painted ceiling medallion we put up last year.
Choose possible decorative mouldings
As you can see in order to create the panelling I’m using decorative wood mouldings. If you go to eBay and put this phrase in you will find lots of options that come up and I started by watching ones that cause my eye.
I found this exampler wood moulding on Pinterest which demonstrates how each one is made from adding additional shapes to one another…
Make a plan
The first thing to do is get an idea of how you want your layout to look and what pieces you could use to achieve it. I saved images from eBay and used the edit function to frame them as close as possible in order to use them in a design. Then in a document I inserted the images and played around with them. Mine ended up looking like this….
You’ll notice how I’ve made a note of the height and width of each piece as I needed to ensure that the entire width didn’t exceed the panel and that the design would work overall.
I changed the design slightly on application, but this enabled me to have an idea of what to order.
Here is what I used to make the panels and the links where you can buy them…
I tried to use carvings that were classically French but also reflected the stylised flowers of Art Nouveau because of the doors. I think it was successful 🤷♀️.
Place the central piece
I put the central piece in place first as it’s wide and I wanted to make sure I have enough space for it.
I measure and marked a halfway, central point then used my spirit level to draw a line as a guide for positioning the moulding.
I use no more nails glue, wiping any excess with a wet baby wipe. Immediately after I placed it I used my spirit level again to make sure it was positioned right so that, if necessary, I could move it slightly whilst the glue was still wet.
Start to measure out the outer design
The height of my area was 230cms and my lengths of curved wood are 200cms. I marked my lengths at the half way point, I applied glue to one and placed it with the half way mark in line with the central point.
Then, using a spirit level make sure they are in the correct position all the way down. I used one with a beam; it really helped throughout the process as it gives an indicator of where the length should run from start to finish.
Whenever you’ve finished gluing a moulding in place use a wet wipe to gently wipe away the excess so you aren’t left with unslightly bumps when it’s dried.
Repeat with the second length, then add your corner mouldings prior to your horizontal lengths so that you can ensure you have sufficient space. Once the corners are glued in place, again ensuring they are level, measure, cut and place the horizontal lengths.
You may notice a slight gap between my length and the corner moulding on the left. When it’s comes time to paint and finish it all I’ll just fill this with wood filler – I’ll update you on that later.
To to add mouldings at the top and the base
As you can see I have a design, consisting of two seperate mouldings, towards the top and the bottom of the panel. I placed my first moulding by measuring halfway along the base to find the midway point, then I just placed the first one so that the centre of the moulding was in line with this. When I later placed these it was necessary to measure the distance from the edge of the panel too to ensure there was a mirrored image.
Unfortunately I didn’t have a free hand to take pictures of this part, but here’s an image of how I knew that the tip of the upper Mouldings was central wit her the laser spirit level.
I’d chosen a longer, thinner moulding to compliment this first shape as it elongated the section. The moulding had broken in the post, but i managed to fit it together when gluing and will smooth it over with wood filler when I do the gap.
Can you see how I’ve chosen the mouldings to fit together? This is a ‘toe to toe’ meeting as it were, I’ll give you a close up of the alternative next.
Add the final mouldings
I also added two more mouldings to the central one. Again it elongated the central moulding and the fact that this central part was bigger than the two ends gav et the entire panel balance.
When you chose your mouldings really consider how they’d fit together if you want a similar look -it makes the planning part essential. Here the mouldings is in the indentation of the central one so it ends up looking like all one piece.
Give it a coat of primer
No matter the final effect your going for you will need to give the naked wood a coat of primer, otherwise you’ll waste expensive paint.
A bonus of using mouldings is that, depending on how many mouldings you’re going to create, you might want to take things slow. It’s not a hard process, but this panel took a couple of hours to do, so an intricate group of panneling will take a while and you may not finish straight away.
With this method I can do a panel or section a week and my down stairs hallway could be done by Christmas without too much stress. I couldn’t do this without anaglypta or something like that, so that and the fact that this is significantly less expensive than the former is a real plus.
Painting it with primer gives it a cohesive look in the meantime.
At the risk of sounding pantomimey – what do you think of I think so far? (Altogether now children – rubbish! 😉)
lacoeursacre.wordpress.com 
Absolutely beautiful ❤
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