Add texture and visual design to your walls with these wainscoting ideas! We have traditional and unique styles to show off!
Looking for more wall ideas? Plywood wall treatments, sharpie wall designs, beautiful wallpapers, and decorative wall panels.
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.
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 ideas 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. Check out these beadboard wainscoting ideas.
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:
Board and Batten Wainscoting
Justin and I have used board and batten in most of our homes. You can alter the height to fit your style and the room, and choose an installation method to fit your budget, time, and skill level.
Board and batten can be chair-rail height (about 4 feet, typically), like in this tutorial that Small Town Idaho Life shared with us:
or taller like Superwoman Brittany shared with us in her living room remodel, or like Justin and I installed in our Logan House master bedroom:
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or you can keep it going full height, right up to the ceiling, like we have done in our current house. (I wrote up detailed spacing and installation tutorials for you.)
You can also split up the board and batten style to make a paneled wall with stacked squares like these:
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$50 faux board and batten by Little Blue Chairs | dining room stacked square wainscoting by LA LA Land
And board and batten is a great wainscoting style for stairs and stair walls… so long as you’re willing to do some angular math!
foyer wainscoting by Impatiently Praying for Patience
Picture Frame Wainscoting
Picture frame style wainscoting is another popular style, especially in older homes where you need more classic styles to match the architecture. See some picture frame wainscoting ideas.
“True” wainscoting is a raised panel like Our Home from Scratch shared (with a tutorial!):
But you can create a faux picture frame wainscot like Southern Lovely shared here
and Involving Color shared here:
You can also change things up and have two-tone picture frame molding like Little Miss Penny Wenny installed in her master bedroom:
Or add a little oomph to the picture frames by using paintable textured wallpaper to look like carved wainscot like Suzy’s Sitcom did:
Or you could follow this great tutorial from The Mustard Ceiling and have a wainscoting that mixes the styles of picture frame with the thicker boards like board and batten:
Non-Traditional Wainscoting Ideas
If you’re looking for a wainscoting that will add architectural interest AND oomph, there are plenty of non-traditional and unique wainscot styles that will set your home apart from builder grade. Try one of these:
offset squares wainscoting (and tutorial) by This Home of Ours
barn door wainscoting (and full tutorial!) by Traci Monson
metropolis circles wainscoting by SoulStyle
striped painted accent wainscoting shared by Erin D Photography
striped painted tall wainscoting shared by Little Blue Chairs
trellis wainscoting by Watch Me Daddy
and one of my favorites
horizontal plank wall wainscoting by us here at Remodelaholic 🙂
Wainscoting for Every Room!
Try it, try it, and you may; try it and you may LOVE IT, I say… (Sorry, apparently I read Green Eggs and Ham too much!)
Try it…
on the stairs and in the hall (by Sawdust Girl)
in a reading nook (by Pretty Handy Girl)
in a powder room (by Sixteen Fourteen)
in the living room (by The Thriftress)
in the entry (by Willow Wisp Cottage)
in the basement (by Dixie Delights)
So, what do you say? Have all these wainscoting ideas inspired you to let this Sam-I-Am convince you to love green eggs and ham, er, wainscoting? Or or are you already on board the wainscot train, heading straight to awesome?
For more stylish wall ideas, check out these:
DIY Stamped Wall (with a DIY stencil!)
Creating Beautiful Storage Space Within Bathroom Walls
3-D Wall Panels with Board and Batten
Elegant Paneled Wall Treatment
Installing Trim: A Beginner’s Guide
Please pin this post for later:
Originally posted 8.12.2013 // Updated 2.3.2021
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
Hi, this examples are painted with white. I want to use more darker color I mean smoked color or light grey what do you think?
I have to say this tricks are really good they are so useful.