![]() Variations on the board-and-batten theme include what was called “skeleton wainscot,” where panels between the battens were not wood but rather covered in leather, faux leathers, embossed wall coverings including Lincrusta and Anaglypta, and the less expensive classic, burlap. Topped with a molded plate rail, this installation was a straightforward means of creating the look of expensive 3-D paneling. Wide (12″) planks of oak, fir, red gum, or cypress are butted together vertically the joints are covered with narrow battens (2½”- to 4″-wide strips of wood). (Photo: Douglas Keister)īoard-and-batten paneling is fairly simple to install. (Painted softwood was also becoming popular, especially for bedrooms, with white enamel common before 1910 and stronger color gaining popularity during the ’20s.)Ī classic Arts & Crafts skeleton wainscot. Woodwork might be golden oak or oak brown-stained to simulate old English woodwork, or stained dull black or bronze-green. Walls in this era were often wood-paneled to chair-rail or plate-rail height. ![]() As Gustav Stickley wrote a century ago, “no other treatment of the walls gives such a sense of friendliness, mellowness, and permanence as does a generous quantity of woodwork.” It can be run vertically or horizontally, used as a high or low wainscot or sparingly as an accent, or may cover the walls and ceiling of an entire room.įor many, wood paneling and related wall treatments are the ne plus ultra of the Arts & Crafts home. Beadboard is standard for porch ceilings in seasonal cottages, the entire house might be paneled in beadboard. Inexpensive even when machine-cut from Southern pine and cypress, beadboard was ubiquitous in back-of-the-house rooms frequented by servants, like the kitchen and utility areas. Today, inexpensive “beadboard” paneling is churned out in materials from medium density fiberboard (MDF) to vinyl, but 300 years ago, the thin bead along the vertical edge of each board was hand-tooled by a joiner. Once a cheap and practical wall covering considered fit only for back-hall and service areas, beadboard now appears front and center in many high-end bathrooms and kitchens. (The bead is a device to distract the eye from gaps that form as the wood shrinks and swells seasonally.) Beaded boards are relatively thin pieces of tongue-and-groove lumber with a side bead or convex molding along one interlocking edge. Since the Victorian era, milled beadboard has been a low-cost alternative to fancier wall cladding. The new style dictated that wall paneling recede to a low wainscot height, with the greatest expanse of wall to be covered with wallpaper. Georgian decoration lasted in America until the end of the 18th century, when the more restrained decoration of the Adam style began to take hold. These new materials are made of dimensionally stable composites of wood or resin. Today, modular paneling systems create the look without the labor. A variation, the flat-panel wainscot, is probably a Shaker invention. Beveling the panel’s edges creates a three-dimensional surface. (Photo: Gridley + Graves) Wainscoting Stylesįormal raised-panel wainscot consists of a floating wood panel with beveled edges, held between vertical stiles and horizontal rails. Raised paneling was popular in entry foyers, staircases, and receiving rooms like parlors.Īn otherwise plain wainscot embellished with molding and pilasters in an 1803 Federal. When panels are combined in a sophisticated, balanced design, the room takes on added dimension and looks “finished” in the same way that a piece of good furniture does. Far more sophisticated than plank paneling, raised panels can be configured to create focal points around architectural elements: fireplace openings, doors, windows. Raised-panel walls didn’t become fashionable until about 1750 or so, when builders of finer homes began incorporating details in the Georgian style, lifted from English pattern books. ![]() If paneling was applied to only one elevation, invariably it was the fireplace wall, where paneling served as an extended surround and a handy place to conceal niches or shallow cabinets. Usually found in the main room of early colonial homes, the oldest wall panels were rough or hand-planed boards or planks. Yet wainscots were secondary to the main event: floor-to-ceiling wall paneling, the method of choice for protecting walls for more than two centuries. Early wainscots were always wood, but later innovations would introduce many alternatives.Ī wainscot beneath the chair rail is a treatment that goes back to colonial times. Hence the paneled wall, and the wainscot-a protective and decorative covering for the lower third (or so) of the wall. (Photo: Steve Rosenthal)īefore the age of gypsum and drywall, interior plaster walls were vulnerable to all sorts of potential damage. ![]() A quintessential Colonial Revival entrance hall is complete with a raised-panel wainscot and bold moldings. ![]()
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