This is a really simple post for New Year’s Day. I’ve been thinking about how to add mouldings to the walls in the part of our staircase that has the turning stair leading up to the higher floors. Unlike the front hallway at first glance this isn’t a simple one third, one third, one third prospect where I have a type of moulding below a dado, something above in the next third, then a picture rail and ceiling section of moulding. The need to follow a diagonal line which turns into a flat can make this simple formula complicated.
The below dado section is fine, but if you want to add a series of panelled mouldings in the next third, as I do, they have the challenge of having to follow the diagonal line too.
I managed to gain inspiration from great houses and how they handled this dilemma.
Here in this green painted stately home you can see how the mouldings have been used in lines to section off areas giving clear horizontals to create tableaux mouldings. So a narrow, moulded frieze runs from the base of a higher floor around the visible stairwell.
Here it is in a more simply painted white decor, although the mouldings are magnificent.
Here is what I will base my blue and white colour scheme on, with the possibility of less expensive stencilled panels surrounded by simple, wood appliqué moulding frames.
Obviously the ceiling moulding is never going to happen, but it’s interesting to see how the final area on a stairwell landing can be treated.
I’ve written about the decor review I’ve made of the living room and how I was planning for it to reflect more of an American, French Country style. In the corner of the room was a cupboard and its obviously a modern style.
So I decided to change it to something more along the lines of how I wanted it to look. I used the same technique that I used for the hallway; wood appliqués. I’ve also used window film and faux lead light (click the links to see the other projects that use these items too).
Adding the appliqués
I used 3 rose lengths and 4 rose corner appliqués, along with some half rounds.
The first thing I did was put one appliqué aside and painted it in the same French grey that I did the rose table in. This room seems to be developing a theme. I intended this appliqué for the top of the cupboard, so painting it like this was easier.
Next I placed the rose lengths. I used no more nails glue as I couldn’t get the door from its hinges and with that, when you put it on the horizontal surface, it stays put.
Measure the centre of the door and put one of your unpainted rose lengths on. Using a spirit level make sure it’s horizontal.
Then ascertain where the centre line is on the bottom of the door. Measure the same distance from the bottom as there is between the top and the appliqué. Put your second rose length there ensuring they’re a direct mirror image. I chose to put the second one upside down because of the central roses I intended to use later. Make sure this appliqué is also horizontal with the spirit level.
Ascertain how far you want the corner roses to be from the rose length and using your spirit level place them either side. Use your spirit level horizontally to make sure that they are directly vertical on the exterior edge.
Then cut your half round to fill the gaps between the corner and rose lengths. Glue them on too.
Score the door horizontally using the spirit level edge placed against the bottom rose length. Then do the same thing vertically using the exterior edge of the rose corner. You should now have scored intersections to place your last two rose corners.
Measure, cut and apply the final horizontal half rounds and then do the lengths.
Measure again to determine the central point then place the roses in a mirror image in the centre.
Allow this all to dry prior to using wood filler to smooth any gaps between the appliqués and the half rounds. Leave it to dry again before painting the cupboard.
When it’s finished being painted glue the final rose length to the center of the top of the cupboard prior to sanding and sealing it. I actually sealed this with clear, water based varnish for speed. I needed to put everything back before the kids got home.
Once this is finished it’s time to apply the window film. Here’s the instructions from Laura Ashley…
This was left over from another project and was a wee bit small. So I disguised this by cutting it to be a central panel and then adding faux lead light.
The room really is beginning to look more of the same style and the cupboard had been a jarring note in that. I’m so pleased with the results. I plan on revealing the whole room tomorrow so I hope you’ll subscribe and see how I’ve I’m decorating for Christmas in a French Country style.
You may have noticed my long absence; I’ve had so much to contend with and in the middle of it all I decided to start the second part of our mouldings. I cannot tell you what a mistake that was! It turned out to be a huge job -not the mouldings themselves, which were simple, but I suddenly found myself doing lots of other work around them too.
I’ve seen on Pinterest lots of helpful ‘how tos’ on wainscoting or panels to your walls. I always think they look classic and they’re on my decorating want list for the other entrance.
However with the main entrance I wanted something more classicly French that would still go with my Art Noufaux doors (how to here). So I came up with this way to add faux panels (take a look at the more intricate panels in my first how to here).
Throughout the hallway was textured wallpaper with an underlay of very thin polystyrene. This had been used because the plaster beneath was rough and in some places falling a part. So the reason I’ve been delayed, amongst other things, is I’ve been stripping most of the wallpaper off and plastering the wall as well as starting to work on covering the seams of the remaining wallpaper to paint.
I’ve also added a picture rail. If you want a how to for either of these let me know in the comment box below.
For the panels I used19mm half rounds and more decorative wood appliques. The ones I used are here…
You need to decide if you want rectangles or squares for the panels. I chose rectangles as they elongate the room. I cut all my half rounds into the same length though as the height and length of the mounding still were very different so they actually created the rectangular shape.
Pre-painting?
Unlike the other panels I painted the wall before I applied them to make it easier to decorate post paneling. However I’m not sure if this was the best thing. I’m going for a two tone look in this section and I think I wasted paint in the middle which will be painted over with a taupe colour. Here’s my inspiration for this section by the way….
One benefit of painting first is that you can see blue through the fretwork of the scrolls, as you can see here…
I’d also pre painted the lengths and scrolls. Painting delicate details in situ can be tricky so this gave me a head start. My gold liquid paint is a slightly lighter colour, so I’m going to use the two shades as a detail itself.
As I had to work around the radiator, which I’ve sprayed the same shade of blue and it’s given it a new lease of life, it naturally led to my considering it in the placing of the panels considering its dimensions. Would I place it near the wall, and therefore have the entire panel on display, or would I have some of the detail behind the radiator itself? I went for the latter as I wanted the panels to be parallel to each other and, as there was no impediment on the other side, the spacing wouldn’t look right.
Work out the spacing?
Prior to continuing I placed what would be the upper half of the panels on the floor running alongside the wall to have an idea of how they’d fit. Satisfied I carried on to the next part.
Obviously when I was working out where to place the mouldings I measured the half rounds in addition to the lengths of the appliqués and then with the depth. As I was going to have two panels I subtracted the total of the two from the length of the wall and I was left with 32 cms. So I decided to allow for the majority of the gap in between and divided the space as 10cms, panel length, 12cms, panel length, 10cms.
I did the same with the depth, deciding on a distance of 5cms between the wall and the length of the wood scroll.
Adding the first detail
Just like my previous tutorial I used no more nails and immediately applied some to the back of the first, wooden scroll. I measured 5cms down and 10cms in and applied it to the wall. Using my infra red beamed spirit level I continued along.
Adding the first length
NMN was added to the half round and applied to the wall with the spirit level’s aid. However I checked the distance from the dado rail with my measure as we’ll.
It’s really important to do this as in an old house like this (ours is definitely pre 1850s, they only kept records after that date, so it could be sìgnificantly older) there is often movement in the walls etc. So although the houses are solid they may not be 100% level. As a result a level line might not coincide with the dado rail.
Continue with the rest of the rectangle.
Measure the width between the rectangles and start again
Is this sounding simple? It is. It would probably be tricker if I didn’t have the dado rail already. After the internal double doors, where I plan to continue the moulding, there’s no dado rail. I’ll have to apply a dado rail there and I’ll post about that then.
Odd areas
In the corners it was too small for individual panels without them looking odd, so I continued the panel around the bend. This meant still using four of the scrolls, the same half round length for the depth and a significantly reduced horizontal half round.
I glued the two top scrolls first, then worked out the different length for the top horizontal. Having glued the verticals and the second scrolls I worked out the next horizontal before gluing. Like with the previous panels I checked the measurements throughout.
More odd areas
The next odd areas where too narrow for double scrolls, so I used this carved, corner detail and a scroll without any horizontal half rounds. I’m actually really pleased how this one turned out.
I painted the interiors this taupe colour, but I feel it’s a little strong. I intend to add a raised stencil to that area in the blue to tone it down. I’ll update you on that as well.
I’ve also used a complimentary gold to highlight the scroll detail and, as you can see in my last ‘odd area’ I’ve started to highlight parts in gold.
Of course, I’ve done it all out of order as I should have started with the ceiling first. However I was waiting for coving to arrive and was too eager. Next will be door details and following that the coving, ceiling details and a feature between the picture rail and the coving. Subscribe so you don’t miss any of it and let me know in the comments what you think – I’d love your feedback!
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! 😉)
We have two front entrances and I intend the second one to have a simple, country vibe as it’s the one our familly will use most of the time.
I’ve been getting inspiration from Pinterest, of course. You’ll notice themes of wood panelling in wainscoting style, light and airy spaces as well as light coupled with deep, Victorian tones. Wood and stone floors, benches and window seats as well as storage areas are elements I’m hoping to incorporate.
Towards the end I’ve included some ideas for the upper landing as I need this area to flow into the formal entrance and hallway. Enjoy!
You may have noticed my long absence; I’ve had so much to contend with and in the middle of it all I decided to start the second part of our mouldings. I cannot tell you what a mistake that was! It turned out to be a huge job -not the mouldings themselves, which were simple, but I suddenly found myself doing lots of other work around them too.
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