Hi Charlotte, wow your hallway and staircase is really impressive. We completely understand your problem as the staircase dominates the space it can be hard to know what colours to put with it to balance it out. We have worked with a hallway like this before and we explored different options with our customer at the time.

It would be great to understand how you would like the space to look and feel before advising. You might find our affordable interior design packages useful - you can see more information here. We can provide you with a personalised design that works well with the rest of your home and style. - Becky

I’m in a similar situation with an oak staircase, although our flooring is slate-style porcelain tiles. I like olive greens / grey-greens with wood like in this photo, or possibly something slightly paler would work?

Hi Charlotte,

White is the best colour for.

Good luck!

Paintforme

Something like Portland Stone might be worthing looking at - LIttle Greene.

Hi Charlotte, I would paint the walls in a paint with warm undertones to tie in with the warm tones of the wood. For example F&B pigeon would look great. Elephants breath, even FB Cornforth white. But also what colours do you like or are you drawn to usually? just make sure the paint has warm undertones and not cool.

I would also suggest getting some lining paper and some tester pots of these colours I suggested or others you like, paint a large piece of the paper in each of the paint colours, and then pin these to the hallway walls, trying them in various areas of the hallway to see what they look like at different times of day, as the colours can look quite different in different lights. Hope this helps you.

Also please check out my website:

https://www.ginarileyinteriors.com

Here are some photos, 1st F&B Pigeon, 2nd Elephants Breath & 3rd Cornforth White.

Gina that first pic looks nothing like Pigeon. Here it is in my hall.

It is infact pigeon. different colours look different in different lights, eg whether South ot North faciing, lots of natural light as in my photo or not much natural light. Charlotte needs to test the colours out in her hallway, other peoples photos do not truly reflect how a paint will look in their actual space.

The more 'colourful' the colour you put on the wall, the more it can potentially bring out the colour in the wood (that's what complementary colours do) so if for example you go for a blue that is quite saturated the wood will look even more orange. I suggested Portland Stone because it's a neutral that is slightly yellow/green but is muted with some warmth.

Gina I think that’s why I was disappointed with Pigeon in my hall. It has little natural light and made the hall very dingy.