Make Your Interior Walls Unique: Install Wainscoting

You can make plain interior walls interesting by installing wainscoting. You can buy wainscoting made with engineered wood or blends of solid wood, plywood and hardwood veneers. You can also make your own by combining wood moldings and traditional rail moldings.

Traditional Wainscoting

Traditional wainscoting uses solid natural wood. It is an arrangement of horizontal or vertical wood parts on flat or raised wood panels. This type of wainscoting can be found in older homes, where talented carpenters applied their craftsmanship to create intricate customized panels.

If you want this kind of wainscoting, look for woodworking services around your town. There could still be woodworking mills that can make wainscoting elements for interior walls.

Modern Wainscoting

Modern wainscoting uses blends to make wainscoting more environment-friendly and cost-efficient while featuring attractive designs or styles of interior walls. Among them are:

• blends of wood veneers and engineered wood or wheatboard
• use of oak, cherry or maple finishes
• use of paint-grade wood that can be enhanced with interior paint
• combination of solid wood, plywood and hardwood veneers
• use of cherry, poplar, walnut or oak panels

Modern wainscoting products are ready to assemble and ready to install from the package. They can be installed by someone who can follow instructions, who has basic carpentry tools and who can visualize what he is doing.

Craft Your Own Wainscoting

If you enjoy doing a little carpentry and you have some time, you can make your own wainscoting by buying wood moldings from the lumber yard. To prevent any costly mistake, you can first tackle the lower wall portions of the room.

With a saw and a miter box, make rectangles and squares sized to fit your own design. You can attach them to the wall with glue and nails. Give them a good finish by setting a horizontal rail molding above them.

Wainscoting Applications

Wainscoting can be used in various ways other than enhancing an interior wall. It can be used to adorn a stairway, to decorate a breakfast corner, to enhance a kitchen island or to prettify just one wall of a room.