Faux Wainscoting

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Happy Friday!!

Today, let’s talk about fake wainscoting. There are quite a few great detailed tutorials out there for this (like here, here and here). So you should go check those out. :) I also showed you in this post how I make my boxes out of molding.

Adding wainscoting – or in my case faux wainscoting – to your walls is a really pretty, fairly easy and inexpensive way to dress up an otherwise ordinary-looking room. In other words, it’s right up my alley. I finished this project in about two days (including paint-drying time) using these guys:

A simple $10 miter box and hand saw kit from Home Depot.

Here’s a couple of pictures of what those two days of work got me:



Yay! So pretty!

Several months after I put it in the entryway, I decided to extend it a little more into the rest of the room. By this point, I had gotten a new electric compound miter saw for Christmas and it made this project much easier and less time-consuming.

Here’s a pic after I got the boxes and chair rail up:


[Sorry for the bad quality night pic...]

This is a really pretty look, too. Just having the molding up on the wall already makes a big difference. And it’s a little more casual-looking than painting it out white. So if you want to stop here, that’s totally up to you!

If you do decide to paint, it’s really important to caulk around your new frames first. Just trust me on this one and don’t skip this step, k? :)

After your caulk dries, it’s time to get your paint on. If you buy good-quality paint that already has primer in it, then you’ll only need to do two coats.

And here she is all finished!


And one more shot so you can see how it all looks together:


And there’s me in the reflection in the glass. Ha!

Here’s a few details for you inquiring minds:

I bought all of my materials from Home Depot and got all my molding pre-primed, just how I like it. It’s already white, so it’s ready to hang and then paint right over when you’re painting the walls.

This is the paint I used:

Glidden Interior Premium Semi-Gloss in white. You can ask one of the paint guys at Home Depot to put it through their machine to shake it up real good for you.

And my total cost? About $150. This does also include a longer wall next to my dining table that I didn’t show you. So the wainscoting spans about 34 feet of wall space. Pretty good, my friends. Pret-ty good.

Well, what do you think? Do you have wainscoting in your home? If you’ve got any tips to share, let us know in the comments! Would you ever think about adding some? Don’t let it intimidate you! If I can do it, you certainly can too! :)

Have a beautiful weekend!

I’m linking up to these great link parties:
Simply Designing | The Shabby Creek Cottage | I Heart Nap Time | Serenity Now
Tatertots & Jello | Thrifty Decor Chick | Domestically Speaking
Delightful Order | Debbie Doo’s

16 thoughts on “Faux Wainscoting”

  1. I wish buying a $10 miter saw would all that I would need for doing cuts. I can NEVER get my brain to wrap around the angle of the cut. I seriously have to do it like 6 times to get two cuts to line up! So I stray away from a miter box. You did a wonderful job and a great tutorial, pinned it of course. It really, really looks fantastic!

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    • Thanks so much! One thing that helped me was watching some YouTube videos on how to do the cuts. It definitely took me some practice, too. Let me know if you have any questions, and thanks again! :)

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  4. looks great Kayla! Looks like you are a few steps ahead of me with our DIY projects! My husband will be back in Dec from Afganistan and hopefully back to DIYing in Jan! Your home is looking fantastic!

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  9. Hello, my husband and I are new to faux wainscoting thing, but would really like to tackle it in our dining room. It already has chair rail, but we have textured paint below that! We got a tool to take the paint off. However, hubby is having trouble cutting frames with miter saw

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