Hi Jo. It looks a lovely hall. I would go for a warm white, to lighten the hall. Have a look at the various options from little Greene or farrow and ball. Perhaps consider a taupe'ish shade for the shirting boards and architraves to tie in with the paper? I assume you're leaving the stairs and door as wood? Perhaps go for for a console table over the radiator or a nice thick Wooden shelf with mirror and where you have a mirror currently add a little chair? Maybe one of the short velvet buttoned ones as there looks to be room? What are you doing with the floor?

We would always recommend replacing original doors with timber. It would be a shame to lose the authentic look and although UPVC composite doors are much better than they used to be they still don't look like real wood. Our wood doors have the same multi point locking system as a UPVC door for high security and the U-Value (insulation) is the same. No cold drafts with our doors. Also with our Teknos paint finish you can match it to any colour you want. Farrow & Ball french grey is very popular at the moment. We recently did this custom door with bespoke stained glass. The client wanted the glass to replicate the original stained glass but wanted new seals etc so we re-designed the glazing for them and they matched the sage green paint that they had used around their home. I hope you manage to persuade your partner to either keep the original door or replace it with wood. Good Luck!

You are perfectly right all timbers receive the same stain differently. Rather than mixing the stains physically as liquids, have you tried applying layers of the two stains on a sample..ie this may have a differing effect. We often create a deeper / different finish / effect by layering a stain / stains. As for my engineered wood flooring recommendation against dark/ ebony I would go for a complete contrast for a contemporary look and use American White Ash see below: American White Ash - Saatchi engineered flooring above is a beautiful, durable contemporary floor. American White Ash Parquet flooring contrasts beautifully against the rich tones of our English Elm Parquet flooring below Hope this helps Charlotte Wood Flooring Engineered Ltd

I guess anything is possible with a decent budget. We had a stained glass panel in our front door which I replaced recently but wanted to retain the original stained glass panel. I went to the company who provided the new door (not a standard PVC door) and they showed me the final result and I decided against as the final looked a bit like a pastiche and it was very expensive. The panel was original so I made it into a picture. The images in the link are much better and a more beautiful starting point than the raw material I was working with!