Planning a Panelled Wall

Planning out a panelled wall can seem very daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Just follow these rules below, and you’ll have it done in no time.

Choose a wall to use- Stair wall is perfect as it creates interest on, what is a very large wall.
Work out how you would like your panels to look. There are so many ways you can arrange panels, however I wanted to keep it as simple as possible for the joiner & myself to understand- I arrived at 500mm x 500mm squares. As I wanted it to look contemporary and not too fussy. It might be better in a Georgian house to have something more complicated and affluent, but simple was key for me. Here are some examples I found on pinterest. 🙂

Panelled wall

Panelled wall with detail

Choose a setting out point – ours was the top left hand corner of the wall, as it is the first point you encounter the wall. This was important to me. If its a normal square wall centering the panelling would look best.
Mark out on the wall how you would like your panelled wall to look. It will certainly help you visualize it and might even help you choose a size of your panels -if you haven’t chosen already. As you can see from above it doesn’t need to be neat, I drew this on my tablet, then onto the wall. I also used Sketch UP to create a 3D (but this isn’t essential…I just wanted to be fancy)
Work out what you need to build it. Which seems tricky, but just break it down.
Longest piece required- for me it was 4000mm (or 4m ) which unfortunately was too long for one piece – so 3800mm was the longest (3.8m)
I used 75mm width door facings which you can order from any diy shop- wickes, B&Q and many others. Simply work out the area (Height x Width) of your wall and divide it by the square sizes you need. Simply give the calculation to the company you choose, perhaps tell them you would like the facings boards as long as possible.
We chose facings with a slightly rounded side edge- as we had a joiner- but if fixing yourself a square edged panel would be better- its less work.
Choose your colour well.
I was concerned that using colour would make my stairs look too dark, I ideally wanted to use a navy, but compromised on a mid blue- Valspar ‘Dragons Liar’
It might even be enough to just paint the walls white- or light grey, so it can be simply about the texture created, not the colour.
I then decided to paint the inner areas where the squares would be prior to the joiner coming- to safe time on the other end and only need to paint the facings which are on the wall. It was very exciting.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BedEnX1hawfV7F7RtQ5I2cjaFPprU0IUAo47HU0/?taken-by=little_designer_lou11
Then simply paint the facings- contrast or to match . Then you are complete!
A beautiful feature wall to give any room a bit of creative flare.