Seeking wall panelling advice....

5 years ago

Hello - Looking for any design advice you may be able to offer me. I'm NOT a professional tradesperson, although I have done drywalling and some finish carpentry in the past. I’m a professional graphic designer in Canada who is now trying my hand on a wall moulding/panelling project in the foyer of my house. This is the first time I’m doing wall moulding. Because my foyer isn’t closed off from the rest of my home, I decided that I could better define the foyer space by putting some wall moulding in… and give my guests a great first impression when they come into my home while I’m at it. So using my graphics software, I decided to map out my walls to scale so I can figure out my layout and any potential problems beforehand. And I do have a couple of problem areas.

I have a couple of walls where the space beside the doors is too small to put two 3.5” stiles (one panel) but they are too big to just put one wide stile in (no panel) without it looking funny. I'm using rails and stiles that are 3.5 inches wide with no chair rail. My baseboards are 7.25" high, my crown is approx 4.5" high and my door casings are 3.5" wide. I attached my little diagram to this post so you can see what I mean. The diagram shows all the door casings, baseboards and crown as dark grey, but they will in fact be white as will all the rest of the moulding. I marked my problem areas in red. Wondered if any of you have ever seen anything like this? I'm hoping that some of you will be generous enough to share some thoughts and/or advice on a bonus room that I'm finally getting around to finishing. BTW, this is a paint-grade project.

Any advice would be so appreciated! Thanks in advance for your consideration.

Best regards,
Mirjana

Featured Answer

Mirjana Conte
Original Author

5 years ago

Hi Sara, So sorry for the very delayed reply. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. I completely agree with you about making the panels above the doors symmetrical with the actual door as opposed to the door frame. I also liked your suggestion to thicken up the styles on the larger walls to help match the wide styles on the other walls better. For the rails, I will definitely be using a panel molding. Nothing too elaborate... just a simple panel moulding around the panels. I'm hoping it will help it look more refined, less amateur, especially since I can't completely get away from having styles with different widths. Thx again for all your help!!

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (6)

wdccruise
5 years ago
There's no explanation of the photograph.
Mirjana Conte thanked wdccruise
Mirjana Conte
Original Author
5 years ago
So sorry. The photo was simply the inspiration for how I would like to lay out my panel molding. However, my foyer is much smaller than the one in the photo and I am working with ceilings that are almost 8.5' high..
Related Professionals
Palm Bay Kitchen & Bathroom Designers · California Kitchen & Bathroom Designers · Kenosha Kitchen & Bathroom Designers · Selma Furniture & Accessories · Killeen Furniture & Accessories · Clarksburg Furniture & Accessories · Victorville Furniture & Accessories · Torrington Interior Designers & Decorators · Waterbury Interior Designers & Decorators · Myrtle Beach Architects & Building Designers · Auburn Kitchen & Bathroom Designers · Duluth Kitchen & Bathroom Designers · New London Interior Designers & Decorators · Tampa Furniture & Accessories · Pocatello General Contractors
Sara S
5 years ago
You could put skinny styles on the skinny walls. I think I’d prefer that to not having a style flanking the door. I feel like the panels should at minimum be maybe 1.5x as wide as the style? So on the very skinny wall, maybe no panel, just style.
Mirjana Conte thanked Sara S
Mirjana Conte
Original Author
5 years ago
Sara, thank you so much for your reply. Keeping your suggestions in mind, I made some revisions to my drawing. I felt that the narrow walls (on walls B, D and F) were too narrow to put two stiles and still have the 1.5x panel between. It just would have been too skinny I think. Do you agree? So on those walls, I drew in one extra wide stile, no panels as all. I widened all the rails and stiles to 4 9/16" so that the extra wide stiles on these narrow walls (6" stiles on wall B, 8" stiles on walls D and F) don't look too out of place. What do you think? Do you think walls B and D will look odd with no panels on either side of the door and one narrow panel above the door. The only redeeming factor is that the walls with the extra wide stiles are separated by fully panelled walls between them. Crossing my fingers it won't look too amateur! Any feedback or suggestions

would be so appreciated.
Sara S
5 years ago
I think going with those wider styles likely makes sense. There’s just not enough space to fit more in those skinny spots.

I’d prefer the panel over the door on D was symmetric with the door. Maybe you could shrink the panel so it lines up with the dark door instead of the grey door frame?

I’m not sure this is a good idea, but I’d see what it looks like if you make the outside styles on your larger walls also wider. (C & E) Maybe not necessarily as wide as what you need on some of those skinner walls, but wider then the rails. I wonder if that would blend the look of the paneling on those big walls better to the small walls?

For your rails, are you imagining any kind of edge treatment?
Mirjana Conte thanked Sara S