A Cap Makes the Room

When Alex and Wendy Santantonio received a long-awaited shipment of wainscoting for the primary bathroom in their 1880s row house, both fell silent. They’d ordered ¾” thick single-bead boards a generous 5 ½” wide, but it wasn’t what they had imagined.

“The wainscoting looked ridiculously huge, both in width and size of the bead,” says Wendy. “I hated it.” A few days later, Alex admitted he felt the same way. Wendy and Alex agonized for a few days about whether they should sell their custom-milled beadboard and start over. (It couldn’t be returned.)

Loath to waste the $1,000 they’d spent (a third of it in shipping costs), they primed a section of tongue-and-groove boards and lined it up along the wall. The result looked better than expected, so they proceeded with installation, carefully cutting out openings for electrical outlets and milling custom adjustments around door and window trim. Along the way, they discovered a method for installing a section over an old brick wall (see “Cheating Brick,”).

The Santantonios finished the 48″-high wainscot with bullnose cap moulding with an overhang of about 1 ½”. They knew it needed additional trim elements to help smooth the transition to the wainscot, but which ones? After experimenting with different trim profiles, they finally hit on the right combination: a coved spacer recessed just beneath the bullnose, transitioning directly to an ogee profile.

The result was a substantial bit of trim with all the elegance and heft of crown moulding. Installation of those final pieces of trim resulted in a dramatic transformation. After nail holes were filled and the treatment was painted, all elements of the wainscot came together in a well-proportioned, flawless installation.

The cap also played well with the other period elements in the room, including new baseboards in a pattern found throughout the house, milled by Alex himself. No longer “ridiculously huge,” the wainscot speaks to every other detail, thanks to experimentation and persistence.

Installing Beadboard

Beadboard tongue-and-groove boards are straightforward to install, provided you are working with a wall with open studs. To help support the new wainscot, install 2×4 blocking (nailers) between the studs. (For standard-width studs, this is usually 16″). Toe-screw blocks (base, center, and top if the wainscot is particularly tall) to the sides of the studs using 2″ thin-shanked trim screws.

Once the blocking is in place, line up each board tongue-out against its predecessor. Tap lightly along the length of the tongue with a rubber mallet to seat the board in the previous tongue-and-groove joint. As you reach the corner, you may have to fabricate an extension piece to fit into the space—complete with a groove, if necessary.

If the space is only slightly larger than the width of the beadboard stock, try cutting your own piece. Using appropriately sized stock (1×4 or 1×6), set up a table saw to mimic the angle of any beveling and cut the edge as close to the appearance of the stock beadboard as possible.

To fasten, toe-nail the boards at an angle through the tongue and into the blocking using finishing nails. If painting the wainscot, avoid painting any projecting grooves. That way paint will not interfere with the wood’s natural shrink/swell cycle.

All About Proportion

Wainscots should be installed with sensitivity to the proportions of the room. Wainscot and chair-rail heights historically followed the proportions of the Golden Mean (Golden Ratio): a little more than one-third of the height of the wall. Never install wainscoting or chair rail exactly halfway up a wall, or you’ll visually cut the room in two.

For a room with an 8′ ceiling, for example, use of the Golden Ratio indicates a wainscot about 36″ high—the closest you can get to the Mean in whole numbers. (To calculate, multiply the desired height of the wainscot by 1.66. The result should equal or nearly equal the remaining height of the rest of the wall, or 60″.) For a 9′ ceiling, the wainscot should be about 42″.

Working With Salvage

1. Using salvaged tongue-and-groove beadboard for a new wainscot can be an adventure. Salvaged boards are typically of different lengths, sometimes different widths, or even different bead patterns. Some boards will be split or damaged. Most will be full of nails.
2. Collect enough material for the dimensions of your project, allowing extra in case some wood is damaged or unusable. Remove old nails and nailer blocks. If the beadboard is unpainted and is patterned on both sides, use the best side of each board. Line them up and arrange to showcase the best color and grain. Use any boards with defects for less prominent areas or saw off the damaged parts and use them as patches, or in corners or less prominent areas.
3. If you want to keep the natural look of unpainted wood, apply at least two coats of varnish, tung oil, or all-in-one clear or tinted stain before installation. If the wood is painted, lightly sand the surface so the wood will accept new paint.

Pro Tip: “That’s the practical simplicity of beadboard—the beads make any irregularity in the joint look refined and elegant.” —John Leeke in OHJ, 2006

Cheating Brick

In our bathroom, under a window, one of the walls was old, water-compromised plaster over brick. Since there was nothing for fasteners to grab onto, I decided to create a floating section of wainscot, hoping it would hold together long term. First, I cut pieces of 1×2 poplar to length to act as rails for the top and bottom of the section. Then I cut grooves into both pieces of poplar to accept the mating tongues of beadboard. Finally, I cut tongues top and bottom on each piece of beadboard I planned to use.

As I was working, the entire section of damaged plaster failed spectacularly, revealing the old studs beneath. With the plaster out of the way, I was able to fix the bottom piece of poplar directly to the old studs that had been hidden by the plaster. I added nailing blocks to the brick wall with screws. I then slid all the pieces of wainscot into place, in a floating configuration without fasteners. Finally, I slid the top rail over the hand-cut tongues and screwed it into place, using the same stud locations as the bottom.

— Alex Santantonio

Wood Work: Helpful Ideas for Many Projects Involving Wood

	Penetrating Stain Fast Dry, Wiping, and Gel stains are penetrating oil-based stains for wood, which come in more than 50 colors. All three types offer superior color control and may be mixed with other stains or universal colorants for personalized tinting. In Provincial: $20 to $42 per quart. Old Masters, (712) 737-3436, myoldmasters.com
	Crafted to Order If you can imagine it, this family-owned company can build it, as they did for a client who requested unusual, Victorian-inspired porch columns. In stock find hundreds of structural and architectural details in Western red cedar, all of which can be scaled to any project. TimberBuild, (800) 915-5110, timberbuild.com
	Trim Candy? This boxed set of 12 tungsten-carbide bits will have you creating moulding profiles in no time. Available in a choice of ¼” or ½” shanks, the set includes bits for dovetail, cove, and Roman ogee, and for rabbeting, grooving, and more. $175 to $179. Lee Valley, (800) 871-8158, leevalley.com
	Pizzaz with Privacy Outfit a Mid-century Modern door with textured, clear, and frosted glass designs from the Spotlights collection. Cubed (shown) is a full-privacy glass that comes in shapes from verticals and horizontals to square/diamond. Door frames sold, too. Through building-supply stores. ODL, (800) 253-3900, odl.com
	Trimmed and Embossed Find every component for a custom wainscot with panels, mouldings, etc. from a company that creates trim on vintage moulders and embossers. Prices for embossed mouldings range from about $1 to $20 per linear foot. Driwood, (888) 245-9663, driwood.com

Raised Panel Repair

Raised-panel wainscots are sturdy but complicated rail-and-stile constructions, built around panels that float within a “picture frame” arrangement. The panels are made by milling or hand-planing the perimeter of a board 1″ or so thick to a feather edge. Historic panels often split or warp, especially if they’re covered in multiple coats of paint.

To create a replacement floating panel, choose wood of the same species, cut, and thickness as the existing panel. (Panels are usually slightly smaller than the available space within the frame to provide room for movement.) Measure the bevel angle of the sloping sides of the panel with a protractor and set the blade angle and depth on a combination saw to match.

Run the panel through the saw on edge to remove excess material on each side. To re-create a missing piece of panel moulding, measure a sound piece of trim with a profile gauge. Transfer it to a piece of paper. Then break down the profile into a series of shapes: cove, fillet, flat, and bead. Either re-create the needed shapes in wood with router bits, as ask a skilled carpenter to do it for you.