Hallway with Dado rail - what colours to paint?

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Hi all,

We are in the process of doing up our house, and are just about to paint the hallway and replace the flooring. We’ve gone for Karndean Auckland Oak for the floors (although due to finance we are keeping the carpet on the stairs and upper landings), and now need to decide on hallway colours. The house is currently one colour spanning all three floors, but there is a dado rail and we thought we’d highlight it and go for 2 colours. I have been thinking of navy blue (possibly F&B Drawing Room blue) and white or cream. I’m not sure which to do above and which below the rail - any thoughts or suggestions? The bannister is going to be painted white and the doors will either be oak or white, and are glazed to let as much light in a possible.

Always the darker colour on the bottom!

Agreed re darker colour on the bottom. Also, if you like drawing room blue, have a look at it on f and b website, it will show you the shades to go with it.

Cat among the pigeons but I don't agree on dark colour always on the bottom, I saw this in a magazine recently and loved it as after looking at other images we are going to do this in our dinning room. Pinterest is your friend on this

I found this on Pinterest which I'm thinking of doing in my hallway.

www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/487233253433492810/

If you are just painting rather than adding panelling then definitely darker colour on the bottom or the lighter colour will quickly get dirty and scuffed much more noticeably. Traditionally in Victorian homes, heavy duty embossed paper would be used under a dado rail and gloss painted or varnished so it was durable and washable.

I'm assuming all these people saying it will look dirty and get dirty have houses with all lower walls painted in dark colours? It will get no more dirty than any other hallway and with today's paint technology it's easily washable, scrubbable in fact.

Thanks for all the thoughts and I love the look in that photo Annechristmas. We would just be painting, rather than using wallpaper and my DH biggest concern is that we do it and don’t like it as we don’t have money to waste. I’ll have a look on Pinterest and see if I can find some more inspiration.

In a hallway there is more traffic and things get carried (or dragged) up and downstairs - makes sense not to use a pale colour, especially if you have kids.

I love pinterest for ideas but be warned. It's very addictive!