Hi both, thank you for replying. Minnie - I love that pale grey, don't suppose you know what it is?? I have some grey undercoat which is dark so I could always try that on a test patch to get an idea although I think paler would work best in this hall. It's south facing so gets sun in the morning but is fairly dark in the avo. Yes I plan on hanging some pictures to balance out the large expanse of wall up the stairs as it looks too bare now. Re the dado - I was only going to run it up the stairs really and not around the rest of the hall, although this might be a no no. It was mainly to break it up and give people something to hold/touch when walking down the stairs

Hi - I wouldn't paint the fireplace or the mantel - particularly if it is the original, the fire surround tiling looks original possibly I can't tell from the pick. I would remove the picture rail completely, then I would build white cupboard doors and box in your book shelves then build a matching pair of door cupboards and and mount on the right handside of the chimney breast - wall mount your TV and satellite box etc on a tilting cantilever bracket with a shelf either above or below to store all your DVD's xbox games etc.. The doors are easy to make from MDF or tongue and groove, paint them white ( or cream and they will hide and safely store all your bits and pieces.) Choose hinges that you like to set it off. Then when you look at your fire place your eye will be drawn to it as a focal point, cosy in winter, lovely flower vase or plants when not in use, and by disguising any clutter and raising the eye level your room will look bigger too! - let us know what you do and post an updated pick !

Hi @Belz2000, I can only speak from my experience, typically radiator valves on towel warmer and rails go in horizontally, unless youre willing to replumb them and fit in a lead which will extend into the sides of the towel warmer / rail. We have a number of towel warmers / rails some with protruding sides others with flush finishes, it is really the look and design that you are going for. Please feel free to have a look at our shop. Now to answer your final question, electric towel warmers and rails are some of our bestsellers. They dont need plumbing, just wiring in and switching on and cost the same as running a lightbulb. They have a dry line cable element which is threaded through and the maintenance is next to nothing on this! At an ambient room temp of 20 deg they can reach 55 to 60 deg but do not radiate heat keep in mind! Any other questions feel free to contact us!

We had one put in that came off another socket so it wasn’t an issue for us. I think the one in our last house was on the opposite wall to the rad in the hallway - so whatever distance a standard hallway was? The electrician would need to run another socket in from the other one. He should be able to put a junction on the other socket and pull a new cable in from somewhere? Have you got floorboards near the bathroom that he can run new cables under? Our dual one is so handy and we put a timer on ours so it’s set to come on every morning. Hope he can sort it for you