DIY Monday: Wainscoting and Chair Railing

When we were doing our bathroom renovation, we ended up with a mess when we pulled out our old bathroom sink. The sink was original to our home, put in by the original builders. The problem is they not only glued the backsplash to the bare wall, but they also painted AROUND the cabinet. What was left was bare, bruised wall board that hadn't been sealed.

We could have pulled out the spackling to patch the wall, sanded it, washed it down and waited for that to dry so that we could prime and paint it. We COULD have, but we didn't. We had taken a week off to do the renovation, were on a tight schedule and did not expect this little wrinkle in our plan. There was too much waiting involved. So we decided to cover it all up with bead board!

You might be familiar with this option? The cover it up option? Sometimes it's really the best way to go. And note to self, when doing home improvement, expect to be over budget and find things you couldn't anticipate no matter how well you planned!

So we made yet ANOTHER trip to the home improvement store to get some supplies. Luckily, they sell pre-cut 3 foot long lengths of bead board (some pre-primed in white) ready and waiting for our wall. You can also get larger sheets of the board (slightly cheaper per square foot) and cut them, but we don't have a ton of space to cut large boards. Chair rail moulding can be bought in 8 foot lengths (usually labeled "chair rail moulding), can also be bought pre-primed, and cut to the length you need. We got the longer lengths to limit the number of cuts and patches we'd have to do. We also pulled some liquid nail that fit into our caulking gun (see picture) and some white finishing nails to hold the board in place.

We were lucky to have a mitre box and saw to cut the corners on the chair rail. Mitre boxes allow you to cut just the right angle when trying to fit corners. They take a bit of visualization to get the angles right, but it's a handy thing to have if you are doing home improvement.

As with the cabinets, the first step to this project is finding the studs in your wall. Pull out your stud finder and start searching. I marked them lightly in pencil because my paint is semi-gloss and can be wiped off easily. Also, we didn't want to pull up the existing baseboards and the baseboards had flat tops, so we laid the bottom of the bead board directly on top of the baseboard. The other way to do this would be to take up the existing baseboards, lay the bead board and then reinstall the baseboards over the bead board.

Once your bead board is positioned correctly, tack the board to the wall with several finishing nails. There's a handy tool called a nail punch that helps ensure the head of the finishing nail doesn't stick out from your board. Once you've hammered the finishing nail in as far as you can, place the punch on the head of the nail and hammer the other end of the punch with your hammer. Be careful not to drive it in too far! When you're finished, you can spackle the tips and paint over where your nails are located for a smooth wall.

Continue installing your panels of bead board until you've reached the end or corner of your wall. Be very careful when cutting the board - measure twice - so that your corners and edges are even. If you're a little off, you can sometimes lightly caulk the joints for a smooth corner.

When finished putting up the bead board, it's time to cut and install the chair rail. The concept is similar. Cut your length of chair railing and I would suggest a thin layer of liquid nails to help hold it in place, then use your finishing nails and punch to secure the chair rail above your bead board. Since we used pre-cut bead board, there was a smooth edge to butt up against.

When finished installing the chair railing, go around and fill all your holes with spackling and allow it to dry. As I said earlier, you can use PAINTABLE caulk to fill in any of your rough cuts - make sure it's paintable or your paint will just bead up on it. When all this is finished, you've only got to paint! The finished product is lovely!