Downstairs Bedroom: Wainscoting

The hubs and I LOVE how wainscoting can add so much character to a very plain room and we knew going into this project that this bedroom was neglected and needed some attention. History has shown (here and here) in our home that adding wainscoting is a cost effective way to make a statement so we did it again. I knew that since this room is much bigger and longer than the other two rooms that we did this in, that I wanted the wainscoting to be taller. I did not want too much detail in it because I thought that it would look too busy with everything else that I had planned, so simple we went. After a lot of cutting, nailing, wood filler, sanding, painting, caulking, more painting and more painting.... we ended with this:

We started out by figuring out how many vertical boards we were going to need. The hubs mostly figured it out by measuring each wall and doing a combination of eyeballing and measuring the best distance between each board. We had a lot to take into account when doing this project. This room had: 1 closet. 2 switches. 2 vents. 3 windows. 8 outlets. (why eight??) Taking into account all of those options, if we would have just gone straight off of measurements throughout the room and keeping it even that way some of the corners wouldn't have matched up and other areas around the windows would have had a board in the middle of the bottom of the window and other windows would have had two boards. Each wall was different, but in the end it all looks even.

We saved some money by reusing the original baseboards that were in the room, as well as the boards that were used to frame around the door and windows. Once all the holes were filled and sanded smooth we started to paint. I used Dutch Boy's "White Lullaby"in Ultra paint and primer in one.

Just to think this is what we started with:

And this is where we are at now:

This room, I believe has seen the biggest transformation from a VERY plain and ordinary to something with a lot of character!  I'm very excited that I managed to get the floors done and now we don't have TOO much more to do in order to get this room back in order!!

Here's the list:

• Hang up the blinds
• Install quarter round on the baseboards
• Paint closet doors
• Find curtains
• Bring all the furniture back in the room and get it back in order