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Read our privacy notice . Originally designed to protect walls from furniture and the general chaos of the house, panelling is enjoying a serious comeback in home interiors. The earliest examples of panelling can be traced back to the 13th century.
The Victorians were more recent fans, applying panels from the floor to the mid-wall and topping it off with a dado rail. Many Victorian homes in the UK still have this highly-coveted feature (along with elegant ceiling roses and elaborate cornices), leading those in newer homes to adopt the trend too. I speak from experience.
My home is a newly built flat but that hasn’t stopped me from adding panelling to the hallway. Rather than shrinking the space, as many claimed it would, it’s made the narrow dimensions feel more spacious and interesting. Since I was working with awkward dimensions and lots of recesses and corners, I chose to DIY my own panels.
This involved picking wood trim at the DIY shop, ordering sandpaper and a mitre box to cut precise 45° angles and borrowing a handsaw from my neighbour. I measured everything out and sketched where the panels would go on paper first, before placing decorator’s tape on the walls to make sure I liked.