I would make a feature of it; it adds character and structure and takes the eye sweepingly along and up which is good for adding a sense of space. Could you paint it a colour that ties in with something else - the flooring or a rug, for example? Or you could put patterned wallpaper or a different colour paint below and a lighter shade above it. You could also hang pictures in the feature shapes above though if they aren't original I'd be tempted to get rid of them. I'd move away from the rather feminine and twee decoration and make it bolder, stronger.

Hi Hutsly, Thank you for giving your opinion which has been very useful. In the 1st, 3rd and 4th pictures, there is a shelf halfway up the stairs. Behind the piece of decorative skirting that forms the side of the shelf was housed a lot of the pipes for the house. I expect that this was a later addition but most of the houses up the street, which are identical, have something similar here. There is a mix of some of the houses in the street having dado rails and others not so we have assumed that they were original to the houses. We are trying to do the house up as sympathetically as possible, hence the refurbished leaded lights on the 2nd floor landing (picture 2). It is just difficult to decide whether today they just look out of place and should therefore be excluded or whether to be true to how the house was originally.

Thanks for the comments guys, there are no spindles under the bannister going up the stair as it is backed purely by wall. The trouble with not having a rail going up is what colour to paint that wall? Would it be top or bottom colour? If you look at pic 2, without the rail there is no barrier between the two on that wall... so the staircase would be a different colour on the left than on the right?

We are going to decorate our hall, stairs and landing which is quite dark with not a great deal of natural light. The HSL have a dado rail and a picture rail which give us 5 things to consider painting 1 ) the woodwork i.e. doorframes, skirting, dado and picture rails [the doors are pine] 2) Below the dado 3) Between dado and picture rail 4) Above picture rail 5) the ceiling The woodwork needs to be white, so my question is, what do you consider the best way of doing the wall and ceiling areas. Since it's a dark hallway, the colours have got to be on the lighter shades. Options are: 1) Darker colour under the dado, lighter shade between dado and picture rail and then white above picture rail and ceiling .... I'm not sure if this looks a bit dated and fussy these days with effectively three different colours on the wall. 2) Have the same colour above and below the dado rail and then white above picture rail and ceiling. 3) Have white under the dado rail, have a band of colour between dado and picture rail and then white above picture rail and ceiling 4) Same as 3, but having a very light off white under the dado and above picture rail and ceiling. Has anyone got any experience of having a dado and a picture rail and what did you decide to plump for? What is the modern way of looking at this? And the last question - I've been looking at some greys for this hallway, but I'm really not sure that my pine doors and grey paint make great bedfellows - again, opinions gratefully received. Many thanks.