There is so much more you can do to give a stylish finish to walls than cover them with wallpaper or paint. By introducing mouldings to form dado rails and panelled areas, a wider range of decorative treatments becomes possible. But the application of mouldings does not stop there. They can also be used to transform plain doors, cupboard doors, shelving, mantelpieces and furniture.
In eighteenth-century Europe, delicate and elaborately carved mouldings were used to divide walls into a series of panelled areas, which were sometimes further divided by dado rails. Doors were also divided into panels, echoing the decoration of the walls. The walls were often painted in two or three tones of colour. In very grand rooms the mouldings were picked out in gold or in a lighter toning shade. A similarly elegant arrangement was favoured in the Neo-classical schemes introduced towards the end of the eighteenth century. All the architectural wall decorations – a cornice or stucco-work frieze at the top of the wall, panelling and dado rail – were generally left white against a plain-coloured background. This treatment works just as well in a modern room, particularly if it is rather box-like. By keeping the panels as upright rectangles, the eye is drawn upwards, giving an illusion of height.
Modern mouldings
Modern wooden mouldings can be found in most hardware stores. You may want to buy a plumb-line to help you get the lines absolutely straight. You will also need a mitring block for sawing corners. Paint the areas within the panels either a tone lighter or darker than the main wall colour, and the moulding in a complementary colour.
In the eighteenth century chairs were placed against the wall, so a rail at chair height protected expensive wall decorations from scrapes and bumps. Nowadays, the dado rail is useful along the length of a staircase, which often gets scuffed, with the wall above papered and the area below the rail painted off-white or to tone in with the wallpaper.
Absolutely plain doors are transformed when decorated with mouldings: use them to introduce panels, such as a pair of rectangular panels positioned above two smaller square or rectangular panels. Mouldings can also be used on plain cupboard doors to great effect.
Tags: door moldings, modern door mouldings, panel doors, panelling doors, stylish doors, stylish plain doors
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