How to do wainscoting in your home and before and after

Wainscoting is a type of wood paneling that was first started in the 18th century. Typically 3 foot from the floor, around walls and stairs, wainscoting protected the walls from damage, provided additional insulation and also made it look more spacious. While in Mumbai, and in a no kid household we do not need additional insulation or wall protection, I can vouch for the fact that it makes the room look more spacious.

Hello, welcome to another episode of Trumatter’s lifestyle blah Talk and today we are talking about how to wainscot your walls easily and the costs involved in the same.

The types of moulding we chose for our wainscot

We chose a 4″ and a 2″ chair rail. In different designs. The total cost of the material with nails was 980 INR. You can get chair rails from a shop that sells wood, ply and wooden furniture supplies. We had a 13 ft wall and we have 4 rectangles on the wall secured with nails.

Paint colors we used on our wainscoting

We used a mix of AnnieSloan Chicago Grey and Canvas, in 1:1 ratio. I always get my chalk paints from Artsy Nest who is the only certified Annie Sloan paint stockist in India. If you buy from somewhere else, I cannot vouch for the quality. The paints are very pigmented and needs one-third of normal wall paint! The spreadability is also gorgeous! You can click on the links above to get the same.

For the bottom, we used Annie Sloan original

Here are some before and intermediate photos! You can also see how much space it added to this wall! Crazy right?

And it took us about 5 hours to complete it all! My man Friday and I! If you are to hire a carpenter, add 4000 to 5000 as labor. The material comes cheap but the process is quite consuming. Especially cutting the corners. Oh wait, no cutting corners when you are cutting corners in your wainscoting! Howzzat?

Stay cool. DIY!

Rukmini