Wall Panel 41WT Walnut: judging the tone before you order

Walnut is the hardest finish to buy from a photograph. Wall Panel 41WT in walnut is a felt-backed slat panel the shop supplies, four pieces to a pack, each 60 x 240 x 1.7cm, 5.76m² a pack. The figures are the easy part. The question people actually ring up about is whether this walnut will sit happily beside the walnut table, floor or wardrobe already in the room, and that needs a different kind of care.

What the listing commits to

It commits to the size, the pack count, the cover and the construction: HDF slats on a felt backing, in a walnut finish, code AWS-HWP015. It says nothing about species, nothing about whether the face is a veneer or a printed decor, nothing about sheen, and nothing about how often the grain pattern repeats along a 240cm panel. On a slatted panel the backing shows in every gap, and its colour is not given either. None of that makes it the wrong panel. It means the match has to be judged in the room rather than argued from the page.

Judging the match honestly

1. Take your reference with you, or send us a photograph of it: a drawer front, an offcut of flooring, a door.
2. Look at the panel face in daylight and again under the lamp you use in the evening. Walnut swings warm under a tungsten bulb and flat under a cool LED.
3. Decide whether you want a match or a contrast. A near miss is the one outcome that looks like an accident; a clear step darker or lighter reads as a choice.
4. Ask which way the slats and the grain run. The listing does not say, and other profiles in the range are named for their orientation, so it is not safe to assume. It matters where the panelling meets a table top or a floor whose grain runs the other way.
5. Ask us whether a panel can be seen before you order a wall's worth.

The other walnuts, and why they are not interchangeable

Walnut turns up across several profiles, and each carries its own figures that should not be read across from this page. 42WT is the neighbouring code at the same stated size. 21T walnut seamless is a seamless profile sold eight pieces to a pack, and its listing is the place to read its panel size, since it is not stated here. 61T is a PVC slat panel whose listing makes no sound absorption claim at all. If two walls in one room need panelling and only one of them needs the felt backing, say so when you order and we can check the two faces against each other first.

Working out the packs

Four panels at 60cm give 2.4m of wall at full height. Count in panels and round up to whole packs, remembering that a part-width panel still uses a whole one. A chimney breast 1.3m across takes three panels, one of them cut, so a single pack with one spare. A 5m wall takes nine panels, so three packs. Order the whole job together rather than topping up later, because nothing on the page promises a later batch will be the same tone, and walnut is exactly the finish where a slight difference shows.

Before you commit

Ask for the slat width and the gap, neither of which is listed; any acoustic test data, since the description claims absorption and reduced noise transmission without quoting a figure; and a fire classification if the wall is in a workplace. The fixing method is not named, so check what the panel wants before you buy panel adhesive with it. Delivery is free within 50 miles of our Glasgow store and £50 beyond. The photographs, the code and the price are on the Wall Panel 41WT walnut page, with the rest of the profiles in Slat & Acoustic Panels.