This week for the One Room Challenge, it's all about installing panel moulding and chair rail from Metrie in our dining room!

What is this boringness? I just can't.

Tools

For this project, you're going to need an air compressor and nails for your nail gun, miter saw, level, caulk (Sherwin Williams has a quick dry one), measuring tape, pencil, and primer.

Measurements

This took me awhile to figure out. First, I had to comb through sites and forums to find the correct height to set the chair rail at. Many homeowners have their chair rails at 36 inches but that felt way too high for our 9 foot ceiling. After much digging, 28-32 inches is the recommended height; it's better to err on the lower side. Since we're putting panel moulding above and below the chair rail, I decided to go with 32 inches off the floor. I initially wanted it to be 30 inches but because the baseboards are so deep, I raised it a couple more inches to give the lower panel moulding more breathing room.

For each wall, I went with an odd number of panels in alternating widths to give it more visual interest. The spacing between each panel is 4 inches. That means on our longest wall (184 inches), I have five panels up above the chair rail and five panels mirroring the same width below it. The panel's width size vary from wall to wall because each wall has different dimensions, but I've kept all the smaller panels at 22 inches wide and worked the larger ones around them just to give it some consistency. Does that make any sense? Somehow it all worked out when my contractor, Kex Design + Build came to install them and they did such an amazing job! Tip: when you nail in your chair rail, it's important to find studs and they're 16 inches apart.

Once all the frames were up, it was priming and caulking time. The outlets were a pain in the butt because they were in the way but I decided to have the mould go around them. It would've cost a few hundred dollars more and more time just to raise them so I wasn't about that. This works!

I can't believe what a huge difference adding some panel moulding and chair rail makes! Our dining just got a whole lot fancier! The ceilings look higher, too. We're not completely done. I didn't factor in the corners around the casing so I had to order more from Metrie. There will be small triangle panels going up. Stay tuned for next week when we paint the walls! Can't believe we're half way through the challenge already! Also, sneaky peek of our new live edge dining table!

Catch up on our One Room Challenge!
Week 1 • Week 2 • Week 3 • Week 4 • Week 5 • Week 6