There is a reason we instinctively relax in a panelled room. For centuries, timber panelling, the Georgian wainscot, the tongue and groove of a country kitchen, the deep panelled library of an old house, has been shorthand for warmth, permanence and good bones. It softens the acoustics, breaks up a bare expanse of wall, and lends even a plain room a sense of having been there rather longer than it has. After a decade of flat, featureless white boxes, that kind of built-in character is precisely what people have started to crave again.
The trouble is that real panelling is a serious undertaking: a joiner, a fair amount of money and a good deal of mess. Which is where wood panel effect wallpaper quietly steps in. Here is how good it has become, and the designs on the site that are genuinely worth living with.
"Panelling has always been shorthand for warmth, permanence and good bones."
The Quiet Comfort of a Panelled Room
The best of these papers do not announce themselves as papers at all. Country Panel in Damson, by Next, is the most convincing of the seven: a deep aubergine grid of square panels with the shadow lines falling exactly where a joiner would have put them, and it gives a living room the gravity of a room three times its age. Manoir in Cream, from Arte's Objet, is the grander of the pair, a tall cream panel with a fine raised moulding that gives a plain room the manners of a French one.
Country Panel, Damson by Next
Manoir, Cream by Arte
Why Do It in Paper
Wood panel effect wallpaper has come a very long way. The best of it now renders the grain, the shadow lines and the gentle imperfections of real timber so convincingly that you have to press a hand to the wall to be sure, and it solves the very problems that put people off the real thing. Oliana Panels in Cream and Stone Grey, by Belgravia, is the most classical, a fine moulded panel with a raised bead that brings Georgian proportion to a room with none of the original mouldings. Redbrook Wood Panel in Sage, by Laura Ashley, is the softest and the most English, and reads convincingly as painted joinery rather than bare wood. Country Panel in Cream, by Next, is the quiet one: pale, calm and easy to live with, and it brings instant architecture to a boxy new-build or a rented flat you cannot start sawing into.
Oliana Panels, Cream / Stone Grey by Belgravia
Redbrook Wood Panel, Sage by Laura Ashley
Country Panel, Cream by Next
It is, in short, the most forgiving way there is to borrow the reassurance of a panelled room.
"The best wood panel papers render the grain so well you have to touch the wall to be sure."
How and Where to Use It
The trick is to match the panelling to the room. A half-height design, run to dado level with paint above, brings classic proportion to a hallway or a stairwell and takes the knocks of a busy space in its stride. A full tongue and groove effect suits a bathroom, a utility or a cottage kitchen, where it reads as cosy and unfussy. And a richer timber panel taken across a whole wall gives a study or a bedroom the grown-up gravity of a gentleman's club. Two designs push the idea somewhere more modern. Acoustic Wood Panelling in Taupe, by Erismann, borrows the slatted acoustic battens that have become the defining wall treatment of the last few years, at a fraction of the cost and none of the depth. Cassetta in Jadeite, from Arte's Objet, takes the coffered square into soft green and treats it as pure pattern rather than imitation, which is a more sophisticated game altogether. The same design in Cinnamon makes the point better than any argument: identical joinery, and a completely different room.
Acoustic Wood Panelling, Taupe by Erismann
Cassetta, Jadeite by Arte
Keep the palette considered: a soft, chalky paint above a panelled paper, or a tonal scheme that lets the texture rather than the colour do the talking. Look to Next, Laura Ashley and Arte for panel and wood effects worth living with, and, as ever, order a sample first, since a timber effect that looks convincing on a screen can read quite differently across a whole wall.
Real panelling took a craftsman weeks. This takes a wet afternoon and a roll or two, and nobody who visits will know the difference. That, surely, is architecture on the best possible terms.
Ready to Borrow Some Architecture?
Browse the full Wood Panel collection, or see where it sits among the wider surfaces in Wood & Cork and Textured Wallpaper. If you are not sure how a timber effect will read on a whole wall, our Sample Service lets you order a swatch of any design before you commit to a full roll.
Cassetta, Cinnamon by Arte
