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The Ultimate Guide to Wainscoting:
25+ Stylish Wainscoting Ideas
Wainscoting is a classic way to add texture and interest to the walls of any room. Deciding what style and height of wainscoting, however, can be as tricky as choosing the color of paint! We’ve rounded up nearly 40 stylish wainscoting ideas that we’ve shown here on Remodelaholic to help you decide what look is best for your home.
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Why Wainscoting?
Wainscoting can be used for many different reasons. Most commonly, wainscoting is used to add interest and texture, even without adding color, such as this full paneled wall, shared with us by Decor Chick:
Adding a little extra wainscoting can help dress up a standard chair rail and make it an architectural feature:
shared by My Cottage Charm
Wainscoting helps enhance the structure and design of the room. Merely by splitting the wall into two sections and giving the eye a line to follow, wainscoting helps the room feel bigger. Molding and wall treatments can also help a tall space feel fitting instead of echoey-large, such as this tall 7-foot wainscoting in this extra-tall 14-foot entryway, shared by Design Dump.
Wainscoting can also be a wonderful solution to disguising some of your home’s quirks, such as oddly placed utility access points. The Modern Parsonage shared how they hid their plumbing access by dressing it up to match the wainscoting.
Taller wainscoting with a ledge on top provides a great place to add decor, especially if you intend to switch it out frequently.
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guest room updates by Tell’er All About It | home tour by 33 Shades of Green
And styles? There are so many different styles of wainscoting!
Beadboard Wainscot
Beadboard is a wonderful wainscot material because it is quick to install and doesn’t require as much of the measuring and math as many of the other styles of wainscoting do.
Simple Beautiful Home installed beadboard wainscoting in a half bath remodel.
And The Reformed Ranch installed a tall beadboard wainscot in a farmhouse dining room.
You can also add a ledge to beadboard wainscoting like we did in our Logan House bathroom
or install the beadboard horizontally like we did in the half bath that we added to our Logan House.
And if you’re going for a different look, just paint the beadboard black like The DIY Diaries did in their modern powder room:
See more great wainscoting ideas on the next page –>
Thanks for the mention! Some of these designs are amazing.
Timely post! I’m about to do board and batten in my hallway! LOVE the look. Thanks for sharing!
Good Luck! It really makes a room!
I love pretty much ALL of these ideas, and I would like to do something similar in my home. But I don’t know where to stop/start. My home is almost all exposed/open concept on the first floor. If I just wanted this in the dining room (which is 3 walls, with one wall a half open ‘window’ to the family room) I’m not sure if it would look alright since its open to the family room, kitchen and the main hallway. Are there any design tips for how many rooms or spaces in a home should have wainscoting to keep the design consistent?
You might need to create some pilasters/columns to end the wainscoting… We have a column tutorial to consider here: https://www.remodelaholic.com/2013/06/interior-column-plans/ We had an open concept kitchen, living room, dining space and entry, so stopped our wainscoting from going into the entry and kitchen dining with these corner columns… just a thought!
Great ideas!! I’ve got board & batten on my to-do list for the living/dining room. Can’t wait to use some of these tips!
Fantastic ideas. I wish you would do a similar tutorial on ceiling treatments!
That is a great idea! Thanks for the comment!
I actually am laying here looking at my breadboard ceiling right now. It’s actually wainscoting glued and tacked over old plaster.
LOVE THIS SITE!!!! My house is going to look amazing!
Stephanie we are glad you are so excited. Your house will look amazing! Thanks for loving our site!
I love seeing all of those different ideas in one spot. I really love the look of wainscoating for the extra texture!
I LOVE the look of wainscoting and want to put it everywhere on my main floor. Kitchen, dining, living room, powder room. Do you think that will be over doing it?
Kelly, I think that would be too much, but you should just try doing some accent walls first and see if you would want to do more. Right now we just have it on our two walls. I did a room in my dads house and we just chose to do the window wall and it turned out great with just one wall.
Stylish indeed! These are some authentic examples of wainscoting I’ve come across. Really great designs and worthwhile to incorporate. Thanks for sharing this post with us!
Can this be done in a full bath or will the humidity ruin the wood? Are there alternative products that are meant for such a purpose? What about within the tub area itself?
Mark which wainscoting in particular are you talking about. It would probably be best to use a ceramic type product right next to a tub, but in a powder room, it should be fine.
We just finished wainscoting in our baby’s nursery! We’re amateur DIY-ers and we found it was actually easier than expected. It’s a pretty incredible transformation! Cheers, Anne
Look Fabulous! What a great fireplace too!
I think these ideas are amazing! Wainscoting can give a room a whole different feel. It can be modern as well as antique looking! Great stuff 🙂
Cassidy, I love this post. I am going to do your full wall board and batten in my basement. It is exactly what I wanted. It’s nice to have a picture reference. How far apart are you boards? It looks as though they are only about 12 inches. Is this correct or are they farther? I love your blog and tell all my friends about it. Thanks for the inspiration.
Marie – that should be about right, about 12 inches on ours. You can learn how to perfectly space the battens in our tutorial here: https://www.remodelaholic.com/2013/05/board-and-batten-spacing-tutorial/ Good luck and we’d love to see pictures when you’re done!
I love several wainscoting styles. So far I’ve done board and batten in my back hall. I will be doing the half bath off that hall using beadboard and will also do half wall between kitchen and dining room. I find it allows me to use darker shades on the upper walls and not feel closed in.
I agree! I love the added texture. So many reasons to love wainscoting 🙂
I want to know if I can use wainscoting in a bathroom. Not around the tub but on the two opposite walls. Will the humidity hurt. What do you recommend?? The total boards will be 4×8 sheets,,,behind the toilet and vanity and also the opposite wall. Thanks
As long as everything is primed and painted well (both sides if you are using something like MDF, I’d say) you should be fine! We’ve done wainscoting in our bathrooms and never had a problem.
I live in a very old house. I’m thinking of putting stained wainscoting on the walls of my den. But I can only put it on 3 walls as the fourth has a wall of built ins painted a medium grayish color. This fourth wall houses a TV, bookcases and a fireplace. Hubby doesn’t want more painted wood, he likes the grain hence the possible design dilemma. Do you have any suggestions on how to make this work?
A friend of mine painted the bottom third of her walls in 4 in white and navy stripes, with a 4 inch white border on top, and then the remaining wall navy. It looked gorgeous. That may be an option if your DH doesn’t want any more painted wood in that room. Perhaps go with a dark gray instead of navy?
Great idea, Bridget!
I asked steve to add wainscoting in all the main areas of our house plus some bathrooms. This post was wonderful to give me some ideas of what I would like to do on my wainscouting projects. =)
I love the circular design of the wainscoting in the cover photo! Where could I find that style to purchase?
There’s more info here in this post for you: https://www.remodelaholic.com/2011/09/living-room-wainscot/
I Need HELP! What can I do if I have regular wall paneling on top and then the 3 feet on bottom for the wainscot. The thing vertical wood looks horribl, and today i ripped it out! Now I’m stuck! Help!
Hi Amanda, if you’ll send us a photo or two, we’d love to post for our readers on Facebook to give you some ideas. Drop us a line over on Facebook or at [email protected].
http://www.facebook.com/Remodelaholic