Hi Liz, sounds like you've got an exciting project on your hands. My two penneth, for what it's worth, is that hallways are often neglected or left til the end. Some people don't think they are worthy of spending too much money on. However, I disagree. When you first walk in the door, or you move from room to room, your hallway gets oodles of views and movement throughout the day. When people visit - their first impression to your house is in your hallway, so you should start as you mean to go on. So rather than paint over the wallpaper and make do, if it was me, I would bite the bullet and take off the old wallpaper and repaint the walls. Whilst doing it, pay attention to the lighting in the hallway and make improvements to increase the light. I can't comment on what needs to be added from the pictures, but you could consider recessed lighting up the stairs, better quality pendant lights, placing mirrors opposite windows to reflect the light back in. Or why not follow Abigail Aherne's lead and embrace the dark side. Make it cosy, comfortable and a little bit quirky! There's lots to consider, but ditch the paper!! Most importantly, enjoy the process and don't think of it as a chore. It's exciting and the adventure is only just beginning.

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Hi Gerty, I would definitely recommend a neutral textured wallpaper if you didn't want to just paint the walls either side. Harlequin do some really nice ones that would work against the busy fireplace. Or you could use on another wall and paint either side of the fireplace, hard to say for sure without seeing the whole room. This has a slight plaster affect which slightly emulates the pattern in the fireplace... This one is a metallic texture which could look really nice... This shows how the textured wallpaper will look but I would stick to a neutral colour...

Agree with above comments. If you did use a heavy duty lining paper it would need to be applied horizontally but even then you may get problems of the texture showing through, unevenness at the joins where it won’t adhere because of the texture, bubbles or lifting because of the extra layers, and it might make it difficult to remove later on because of the extra adhesive and paint. I would either paint with a trade Matt paint so the texture is not so obvious or strip and re do.