DIY Wainscoting – Part 2 – Cutting The Frames

DIY Wainscoting – Part 2 – Cutting The Frames

Easy To Do Wainscoting - Cutting the Molding



In the first post I went over how you go about designing the wainscoting, what things you should consider and how you go about laying it all out.

Now that you’ve designed the layout of your wainscoting, it’s time to get cutting!!

The cutting is one of the two areas where you can save TONS of time… if you use the tips that you’ll find here.

 In this post we’ll cover cutting the moldings for the rectangular wainscoting frames. Since the wainscoting frames are rectangular, all the moldings used for these frames will have 45 degree angled cuts.

 I’ll probably do a post on the non-45 degree angle cuts later. Those are much trickier. The frames that we installed in the stairs have a non-45 degree angle to follow the lines of the staircase.

Anyways, Let’s get to the tips!

 

 

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you decide to purchase any of these products, we earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. We recommend these products only because we have experience with them and use them for our own projects. As Amazon Associates, we earn from qualifying purchases.

The Shopping List

Tools List

Here’s a list of the tools we used on this project.

Affiliate links below may be to similar items when exact items couldn’t be found online.

Cordless Finish Nailer

Extra Battery For Finish Nailer

Miter Saw 

Supplies List

These are the supplies used on this project.

Affiliate links below may be to similar items when exact items couldn’t be found online.

4″ Polyester Synthetic Brush – 4 brushes to apply the poly

6 Gauge 1 1/2″ Finish Nails

Why You Need To Make A Jig

I’m sure this isn’t a surprise, but when doing wainscoting you are going to be cutting A LOT of molding. Many of the pieces you’ll be cutting will also be the same length.

By spending a little time in the beginning creating a jig, you’ll save a TON of time cutting those same sized pieces to length.

The jig basically extends the miter saw platform and allows you to add stoppers at the length of the molding you want to cut.

By using the jig you’ll only need to measure the molding size for the first piece of molding.

Then you’ll use that piece to set the stopper and all the other pieces of the same size can be cut by butting the end of the molding against the stopper and cutting.

No need to measure after that. 🙂

 

Making The Cutting Jig

This is what my jig looked like. Here’s a breakdown of the pieces of wood used:

A scrap piece of plywood acts as the base of the jig. The plywood keeps everything lined up. The miter saw and the pieces of wood used for the jig are all screwed into the plywood.

A 2×4 standing on it’s end acts as an extension to the miter saw base.

A 1×4 screwed into the 2×4 acts as an extension to the miter saw backstop.

There really is no right or wrong way to make the jig.

As long as:

  • it’s longer than the molding pieces you’ll be cutting
  • the base extension is at the same or similar height to the miter saw base
  • backstop extension lines up with the miter saw backstop
wainscoting - molding jig with details
wainscoting - molding jig from behind with details

Using Your Cutting Jig

Now that you have a jig made here’s how you use it.

1- Cut The First Molding

You’ll need to cut your first piece of molding to the size you want first. Once it’s cut you’ll use that molding to set the stopper.

Once the stopper is in place you’ll be able to cut all the other same sized moldings without having to measure again.

2- Use The Closed Blade To Keep Molding In Place

To set the stopper, place the miter saw in the closed position and place the molding you cut in step 1 against the blade.

wainscoting - using the cutting jig place molding against closed blade

3- Set The Stopper

With the molding placed snug against the saw blade you can now set the stopper on the other side of the molding.

I marked the end of the molding on the back stop with a pen and lined up the edge of the stopper with the pen line and screwed it in place.

Now that the stopper is in place you can cut all your other same sized moldings without measuring.

wainscoting - molding jig setting the stopper 2

Tip:  I also wrote the molding measurement on the backstop (as you can see in the picture) That way if I needed to cut another piece of molding the same size again I’d already have the stopper placement without having to measure again.

4- Cut The Angle That Will Be Against The Stopper First

I’m finding it tough to explain, but you want to cut the angle that would end up against the stopper first, then place that angle against the stopper and make the cut to size.

With my jig, since the jig is on the left I needed to do the left angle on my molding first.

So I set my miter saw to the 45 degree mark to the right and cut the left 45 degree angle.

Wainscoting - the first angle to cut with details

5- Place The Molding Against The Stopper To Cut To Size

Once the left angle is cut, spin the miter saw to the 45 degree mark on the left, place the molding against the backstop and the left angle against the stopper.

Now cut the second angle – which also cuts the molding to the correct length.

wainscoting - molding jig setting the stopper details 2

Tip:  Instead of cutting the left angle then the right angle on each molding, it’s faster to cut all the left angles first, then spin the miter saw to the other side and do all the right angles.

Otherwise you spend a lot of time just spinning the miter saw left and right.

There You Have It

Now you can cut all the moldings you need for the rectangular wainscoting frames. In the next post I’ll share how I nailed the moldings to the wall.

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Easy Way To Do Wainscoting - Cutting the Molding - Portrait

DIY Wainscoting – Part 1 – Design And Layout

DIY Wainscoting – Part 1 – Design And Layout

Easy To Do Wainscoting - Design And Layout



If you look on Pinterest for wainscoting you’ll find all kinds of different styles and versions of wainscoting, from the super simple to the incredibly ornate.

I wanted a wainscoting design that looked fancy without going over the top and I didn’t want it to be too difficult to install.

I think what we chose did just that, it added a ton of style and character and looks great. And it didn’t take a ton of time to do.

I did the wainscoting in the downstairs first, then about a year later I decided to also do wainscoting upstairs. If I added up the time between the upstairs and the downstairs it probably took a total of roughly 2 weeks for both… but keep in mind they are pretty big spaces.

In this post I’ll go over what we did and why we did it. No matter what style you choose, you’ll find tips in here to make your install go smoother.

I think the secret to installing wainscoting is using templates and spacers. Since most of the pieces of the wainscoting are the same size you can make templates to cut them faster and spacers allow a consistent spacing without having to measure every space.

Using templates and spacers with your diy wainscoting will make a huge impact on the length of your installation time.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you decide to purchase any of these products, we earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. We recommend these products only because we have experience with them and use them for our own projects. As Amazon Associates, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Deciding On A Wainscoting Style

We looked at a lot of Pinterest pins of wainscoting to find one that fit the style we had in mind.

Honestly, if you don’t know what style you’d like, doing a search on Pinterest is a great way to find out what choices you have.

Of course if you like the wainscoting layout and moldings we used, feel free to copy what we did. 🙂

So Many Options

There are so many wainscotting ideas out there, and they all look great in their own way.

Take a look a the different wainscotting layouts that exist on Pinterest, do a search and you’ll find countless wainscotting designs.  If you don’t find exactly what you want, come up with your own wainscoting flavor that’s a mix of one or two designs you like.

Here are a few wainscoting designs that we liked:

wainscoting paint colors
wainscoting paint colors
wainscoting paint colors
wainscoting paint colors

The Pin The Inspired Us

This is the pin that inspired our flavor of wainscoting design. We loved how it looked and loved the second horizontal molding between the boxes or frames and the chair molding.

wainscoting paint colors

The Wainscoting Design We Used

Our flavor of wainscoting differs from the pin that inspired it in a few ways – but I think you can see the similarity.

The differences:

  • Uses a heftier second horizontal molding (it’s the same one we used for the wainscoting frames)
  • Has the chair molding higher (so it lined up with the kitchen bar downstairs and the half wall upstairs)
  • Use rectangles standing up instead of the squares or rectangles that are laying down (which seems pretty common)
  • Our spaces around the squares are 3 1/2″ (the width of a piece of 2×4)

 

wainscoting - molding the design we used

The Style

We looked at a lot of Pinterest pins of wainscoting to find one that fit the style we had in mind.

We liked the wainscoting frames to be more rectangular than square and taller rather than wider.

Initially, we were going to only have the chair molding on top of the frames, but after trying it we realized it needed an extra little something, so we added another horizontal molding between the chair molding and the frames.

The Wainscoting Height

How high do you want your wainscoting to go?

I came across a post that discusses wainscoting height in detail. Her tip was to use the rule of thirds, meaning the wainscoting shouldn’t go higher than a third of the way up the wall.

Here’s the link if you’d like to find out more.

I didn’t come across the article until I started writing this post, but even if I had come across it before, I probably still wouldn’t have followed the rule of thirds. That’s because for each floor we wanted the wainscoting height to line up with something else in the space – and that didn’t line up with a third of the wall height.

On the first floor it was the kitchen bar top and on the second floor it was the half wall in the loft space.

If you’re trying to figure out a height to use try the rule of thirds, or line it up with something else in the space, or if there isn’t something in the space that you’d like the wainscoting to line up with then you can use the measurements we used as a starting point and adjust however you need to. 🙂

The height (from the floor to the top of the chair-molding) on the 1st floor was 41″ and the height on the 2nd floor was 41 1/2″.

Figure Out The Frame Width

This was one of the biggest stumbling blocks for me when I started this project. How was I going to make all the frames the same width?

Since all the walls are different sizes it seemed impossible to make them all the same width… and well – it is.

I figured out in the end that every wainscoting frame doesn’t need to be the same width or even the same height –

I didn’t want the frames to be square-shaped if I could avoid it and based on the height of the wainscoting I aimed for frames that were around 18 inches wide.

The Space Around The Frames

The spacing between the frames is THE thing that needs to be consistent.

As long as the spacing around the frames is the same everything will flow.

For ours, we chose a spacing of 3 1/2″ all around each frame, that way we could use pieces of 2×4 as a spacers. 😉

The Molding We Used

We used two different pieces of molding for the wainscoting, one for the chair-molding and the other for the frames and the horizontal molding between the chair-molding and frames.

We bought both of them from Home Depot. Here they are, you can click on the image if you’d like to get the same molding. 

The Chair Molding (Top Molding)

This is the chair molding. There was a poly version of this molding which is much cheaper but the features were a bit more exaggerated and we liked the look of the wood version better.

The Molding For The Frames

This is the molding we used for the frames and as the second horizontal molding (below the chair molding).

It’s a poly molding so it was really inexpensive… luckily because we bought A LOT of it. 🙂

Our Colors

For the wall colors we chose greige colors (a mix of grey and beige).

A lot of wainscoting pics we came across left the wainscoting frames white on a different colored wall.  That makes the wainscoting frame pop out more, but we chose to paint the frames the same color as the wall instead.

Painting the wainscoting the same color as the wall gives it a built-in look, which we liked.

If you’d like to use the same colors here are the two colors we used:

 

Bottom Paint Color

Sherwin Williams

Aesthetic White (SW7035)

Showcase

Interior Satin

Top Paint Color

Sherwin Williams

Anew Grey (SW7030)

Showcase

Interior Eggshell

wainscoting paint colors

The Wainscoting Measurements We Used

The picture has all the wainscoting measurements we used.

Because each wall has a different width, the wainscoting dimensions for each wall have to be different.

All the dimensions of the wainscoting frames on the same wall are the same.

We knew the total height of the wainscoting was 41 1/2″ (to line up with the height of the half wall in the space) so we worked backward from that measurement.

We placed the top of the chair-molding at 41 1/2″ and placed the smaller horizontal molding below it to see what spacing between it and the chair-molding worked for us. We came up with 3″.

Because I also knew I was going to use pieces of 2 x 4 as spacers I could now figure out the height of the wainscot frames.

Here’s how we figured out the height of the wainscot frames is:

 

The total height of the wainscoting 41 1/2″
Minus The chair molding thickness – 2 3/4″
Minus the space below the chair molding – 3″
Minus the second horizontal molding thickness – 1 1/4″
Minus The spacing above the frame 7- 3 1/2″
Minus The spacing below the frame – 3 1/2″
Minus The thickness of the baseboard – 4 1/2″
Equals The Wainscot Frame Height = 23″
Wainscoting Measurements

Figuring Out The Width Of The Wainscotting Frames

Ok, you’ve figured out the style, molding, height, spacing and the colors – now it’s time for some math!

This part may feel a little intimidating but trust me, it’s much easier to do than it seems. 

Like every other aspect of this project, there are probably a million other ways to figure this out but here’s an example of how I measured it.

 Let’s use the wall in the picture for the example, the wall measured 124 1/2″ and I ended up using 6 wainscoting frames.

Wainscoting Box Measurements

Calculating For The 6 Frames Shown

First, I subtract the left spacing from the total, which for me is 3 1/2″ or 3.5″, take a look at the picture for more of a visual.

That gives me 121″, now divide 121″ by the number of frames you think would fit. In the pictured example I used 6.

 121″ / 6 = 20.16″

So each frame + it’s spacing on the right would equal 20.16″ in width (The red arrows).

So the frames size would be 20.16 minus the spacing on the right.

The frame size would now be 20.16 – 3.5″ = 16.6″ (The blue arrows)

Since I wanted a rectangular shape, 16.6″ worked well. Basically, I try the same formula with an additional frame or minus a frame, and figure out the one that looks best.

Wainscoting Box Measurements

Let’s Say We Calculated for 5 frames

If I tried 5, it would be 121″ / 5 = 24.2 That means each frame + the spacing on it’s right would be 24.2″. So the frame size would be 24.2″ – 3.5″ (the spacing size) which would be 20.7″

The thing to keep in mind there is no right or wrong for any of this. I wanted my frames to look more rectangular in shape than square and a width of 20.7″ would be pretty close to the height of 23″ so instead of doing 5 frames I opted for 6.

Converting Decimal to Fractions

So now you know the frames should be 16.6″… how the heck do you figure that out on a tape measure?!

Figuring out the numbers was definitely easier using a calculator but I ran into a problem of converting the decimal from the calculator back to a fraction I could use with a tape measure.

The answer was a widget I came across that converts decimals to fractions that can be used with a tape measure.

Feet and Inches Calculator

How To Handle Windows

This is something I thought of afterwards. If the window goes below the height of your wainscoting then it would be best to measure that wall in sections, with the space below the window as it’s own section.

 

I’ve seen some wainscoting pics where they kind of use “L” shaped frames to conform around the window… I don’t think it looks that great.

 

I think it looks more put together if the frames under the window are a different width and height – as long as the spacing around the frames is the same as the rest of the wall it will all fit together.

 I don’t have any windows to show an example but I think I’ll draw a diagram to explain it a bit more.

That’s It For The Wainscoting Designing And Layout

That’s it for the designing and laying out your wainscoting diy. Now that you figured out all the nitty gritty for your wainscoting it’s time to start cutting some molding! I’ll cover that in the next post!

 

DIY WAINSCOTING – PART 2 – CUTTING THE FRAMES

 

 

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Easy Way To Do Wainscoting - Designing and Layout