How to Create and Install Wainscoting

This HouseCall request brings Ron to sunny Saint Petersburg, Florida where the Alman family is still in the process of putting the finishing touches on their new home. They were a little uncertain how to go about putting up wainscoting in the dining room and asked Ron for some help. It turned out to be an easy, inexpensive and very satisfying project!

Click Here For a list of what you will need in order to complete this project.

1. Measure chair height:

• The wainscot panels will be held in place by a chair rail cap that attaches along the top of the paneling and a baseboard at the bottom. The chair rail was originally designed to prevent the chairs from gouging the walls. For this reason, Ron suggested using the chair as a guide to determine the ideal height to position the rail.

• They measured up from the floor to the bottom of the chair rail. They took this measurement and marked it on both ends of the wall. They snapped a chalk line to indicate the top edge of the paneling.

• Karrin used an electronic stud finder to locate and mark the wall studs. This information will be needed later when the chair rail is attached.

3. Cut paneling:

• The paneling selected for this project was a quarter of an inch thick, and three and a half inches wide. It was also tongue and groove, which means a tongue of one plank slips into the groove of the next.

• They used a power miter box to cut the panels. Because they needed to make so many repetitive cuts of a uniform length, they created a pattern from which to cut each piece of paneling. They used the pattern to lay on top of a longer piece of wood and then drew a line indicating where to cut. Ron pointed out that it is important to always use this same pattern. It is tempting to take the board that you've just cut and use it as a pattern, but if you do that several times you can introduce a series of small errors and the pattern can gradually change in size. Make sure to use only one pattern throughout the project.

4. Attach paneling:

• With the paneling cut to length they were ready to attach the boards to the wall. It is important to place the nails where they won't be seen, which is at the very top and very bottom of the boards where the chair rail and baseboards will conceal the nail heads.

• With a pneumatic nail gun and thin gauge nails, they quickly and easily pinned the paneling in place without splitting the ends. The nail gun served to tack the boards in place but the chair rail and baseboards, attached directly to the wall studs, would later provide a secure reinforcement for the paneling.

5. Obstacles:

• Several of the walls had electrical outlets. After turning off the power and pulling the receptacle out of the way, they marked the position of the box and drew the outline onto the panel using a combination square. They cut out the openings with a jigsaw. Finally, they cut small notches to provide clearance for the receptacle mounting screws. They slipped the paneling back into position and then secured it with nails.
• Their next obstacle was the corner where the final board on the wall needed to be cut to a different width. Ron demonstrated an easy technique for this.

• He first taped a piece of paneling right on top of the last board closest to the wall. Next, he put a second board on top and pushed it into the corner then traced the edge onto the board underneath. Jim then used the jigsaw to carefully cut along the line, which created a panel exactly the width they needed.

6. Baseboard:

• After all of the panels were in place, they got started with the baseboard. Here they needed to cut several angles to get around a few tricky situations.
• First, using the power miter saw, they made a bevel cut on the end of the first piece of baseboard. When this cut was placed next to the door casing, it created a clean, finished look.

• To give the baseboard a smooth and continuous appearance as it wraps around the corners, they cut 45-degree miters on adjacent ends. When these angles are placed together they form 90-degree angles.

• There was one wall in the room that was longer than any single piece of baseboard so it was necessary to join two pieces together to get the length they needed. By cutting opposing 45-degree angles on the ends of two baseboards and then overlapping them, the joint, called a scarf joint, becomes almost invisible.

• They added a piece of quarter round molding where the baseboard met the floor to create a nice finishing detail.

7. Chair rail:

• The final piece of the wainscoting system to be attached was the chair rail. This unique piece of trim has a rabbit cut on the lower edge, which will do two things. First, it will conceal the top of the paneling boards that were attached earlier and second, it will trap these panels in place and hold them securely to the wall.
• The chair rail was cut using the same techniques used for cutting the baseboard.
• They located the marks on the walls made earlier to indicate the location of the wall studs and then attached the chair rail directly into these studs.

8. Finishing:

• Wainscoting can either be stained of painted. If you are staining the wood, the nail holes should be filled with wood filler. If the panels are to be painted, the nail holes can be filled with spackling compound and then sanded before priming and painting the wood.

RESULTS:
There are many home improvement projects that people are afraid to try for one reason or another. For the Alman family, wainscoting was one of these projects. When they learned about Ron, and the perfect opportunity to do it themselves yet have expert help and advice, they jumped at the chance! The results were better than they had hoped and the project was easier than they had ever imagined.