Picture Frame Paneling

Today we devoted ourselves to all things powder room,

or as I like to call it: “the boxy silo”.

Not a lot of charm there, sadly

Well, it is a brand new, plain Jane space,

since we borrowed an old hallway to create it.

That’s just great, but I don’t want brand new in our old house.

This means my quest for this room, as it is for all others,

 is to make it look as original to the house as possible.

Adding some age, if you will.

Starting at the floor!

I chose these marble tiles because I thought they looked age appropriate.

Nice!  If I do say so!

But those plain Jane walls!  What to do?

Here’s my idea:

Faux paneled walls!

This is also called picture frame molding,

so off we went, in search of said-same at Home Depot:

Score!  Here’s a close up of what we bought:

Whoa — that photo’s awful, but you get the idea.

And look at that price!  8′ of it for $3-ish!

And yes, the sign does say “poly”! . . .

. . . which is normally a big, fat NO in my little world.

This time, it’s okay, though, because we’re painting everything,

just like in my inspiration bathroom:

So.  Off to the bozoputer I go, for assistance with this daunting project.

Here’s a little of what I learned:

the chair rail’s height should be 1/3 the distance of the ceiling height,

 between 28″ – “32” from the floor.

Lower is always better.

But wait.

 G.O. wasn’t on board + wasn’t having that figure;

according to him, it was much too low.

At this point, I suggested we mock up our design with masking tape,

hoping that, if he could see it, he’d like it

+ immediately admit I was right.

HA.  I “keed”!

I even compromised a bit, since I’m such a team player.

I said our chair rail could be a whopping 34″ from the floor, 2″ over the max!

Oh, dear.  This is when we I get into trouble.

I held my breath, but please.

  I think it looks just great!  See for yourselves:

While it looks like a very complicated project, it’s really not.

Every single feature is exactly 3″ apart . . .

. . . the rectangles from each other, the rectangles from the chair rail,

+ the rectangles from the corners + the woodwork + ceiling.

Easy, no?

After completing the taping of one wall,

G.O. took a slight break + give the actual picture frame molding a dry run:

Turns out its width is nearly identical to that of our masking tape!

Perfect!

And, speaking of perfection,

these grays coordinate swimmingly with our marble floor:

YUM!  Am I right?

Now all we have to do is get that molding up + running

+ then, choose a gray!

Stay tuned!

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