Wall panelling: how to set it out so it does not look stuck on

Panelling is the most requested job we get and the easiest to get wrong. The boards are not the hard part. The setting out is.

Start with the obstacles, not the wall

Sockets, switches, radiator brackets, the door architrave and the chimney breast are all fixed. They decide where the panels can go. Work out the panel spacing around them first and the layout looks deliberate. Divide the wall into equal panels first and you end up with a socket sitting a third of the way into a rail, which everybody notices even if they cannot say why.

The centre line is a choice

A wall with a chimney breast wants to be set out from the breast, so the panels either side read as a pair. A plain wall usually wants to be set out from the centre of the room rather than the centre of the wall, because that is where you stand.

Height matters more than people think

Dado height panelling in a room with a low ceiling closes it in. Full height in a tall Victorian room can look magnificent. There is no correct answer, but there is a correct answer for your room, and it is worth someone standing in it before the boards are ordered.

The bits that ruin it

Skirting that does not line up with the bottom rail. A dado rail that hits a window sill at an awkward height. Panels that fan out as they climb the stairs because the run was set out to the floor rather than the pitch of the flight. All three are setting-out failures and all three are permanent.