When you think of wainscoting styles, you probably think of bead board. This is going to be your most classic option but it can also be a little bit of a difficult DIY project. There are a lot of different types of wainscoting. This just means paneling applied to the lower part of your wall. If you’re trying to save money you can find new ways to integrate this to prevent using unusual materials. It’s possible to get this look in your room at all different price points.
Wainscoting Design
Usually we see this quite a lot in the country kind of design style. This is going to usually use the cottage style of white beadboard. However, you could find a totally new take on this. However, it will be a little bit expensive. You could even find a lot of old painted wood doors at thrift stores to turn into casual paneling. You need to treat this properly because it might have lead paint on it. However, you can leave a lot of the hardware entact. You could paint it out for more of a traditional look. Then apply this to your walls instead of traditional molding which is going to give you a very vintage kind of effect.
Right now board and batten molding is very popular. This can be pretty expensive but you can also just fake it. You can just layer on different molding rectangles and top it off with a plate rail. Then paint everything the same color so it just looks like one continuous piece of wood even though it will save you a ton of money.
You can also mimic different design eras depending on the style of molding that you go with. Usually beadboard is going to cut the room in half. Instead, you can go with taller versions. This is especially important for the arts and crafts design style and it will be quite expensive with dark natural wood tones.
CC Photo from Crown Molding
Beadboard: Bathroom Styles
Wainscoting ideas can include a lot more than just wood paneling. In fact you could even try this in a bathroom with tile paneling. You can mimic plate racks with an oversized accent tile. Be aware that this is just going to be more tile area for you to clean. However it does add pattern to your room and it’s definitely going to hold up a lot better than your typical kinds of wallpaper.
If you just have your basic beadboard type of molding then you might want to give it a vintage effect so it’s a little bit more sophisticated. You can easily do this just by going with vintage colors such as a faded olive green or a butter yellow. Applying glaze to any of the molding is going to ensure that it really stands out. However, you can want to make sure that you don’t bring too many distressed elements into the room. Black wainscoting can add a cozy effect to a modern palette. This means going with dark and rich wood furniture tones instead of the painted distressed furniture which is also very popular right now.