Wooden Panelling- liming needed!

[VictoriaBH]

Hi all!
I’m wanting to brighten the wooden panelling in the entrance hall of my house. Also change the floorboards to something that will work. It’s currently quite a dead wood shade and there are murals that I think need to be removed as well. It’s time for a fresher look.
Does anyone have any good contacts to help with a job like this? The ground floor is about 800sqft. There’s also the bannisters on the staircase.

 

[SamB]

Please, if you genuinely want to "remove" the murals, have them papered over with lining paper using a traditional soluble paste so someone in the future can rediscover and renovate them.

 

[Stevers]

I think they're wonderful, but can't help feeling that they're not as old as they look.

 

[Toby Newell]

Yes, I know someone. Here is his website. Some say he is quite good.

Www.newellwoodworks.co.uk

(You can message me on here if you like)

In the mean time, more photos please. In less artistic lighting. You want the oak re limed then? Not a fan myself, but it can be re done the traditional way. Hard to see if there is not some trompe l'oeil graining in there.

Looks like Junckers maple strip flooring, odd choice. Hopefully there is oak strip underneath, or encaustic tiles, or at the very least a pine board sub floor.

The murals aren't bad, maybe a bit ott. I think any originals, if any, would of been limited to swag motifs. Not a super fan of the paint effect on the coving and ceiling though.

Hard to date. Looks like mid to late Georgian style, but then the Victorians loved copying this. Where are you in London?

 

[Toby Newell]

I think they're wonderful, but can't help feeling that they're not as old as they look.

Look new to me. Very 1980's as is paint effect.

 

[Toby Newell]

Second photo shows some doping to part of the framing, hopefully there is oak underneath all around and a lazy polisher used a pigmented shellac (dope) rather than stripping and refinishing.

The bannister and newel look quite dark, even the medulary rays have darkened substantially, this normally occurs with great age or perhaps the oak was fumed, or cleaned at some point with an ammonia based cleaner.

I would strip it, soda and oxalic acid bleach it, shellac, wire and wax it to give a lighter look. The patination would be a deep gold.

 

[Toby Newell]

I think they're wonderful, but can't help feeling that they're not as old as they look.

100% not period, quite twee imho. Wall often would have been contrast colour to ceiling, any such mural effect would of normally aped an expensive wallpaper, for example a repeated fleur-de-lys pattern.