Chair Rail

One of the things we want to do in the nursery is to install a chair rail. By installing the chair rail we can paint the room with two colors, one color above and one below the chair rail. I’ve been searching for good chair rail examples and this one caught my eye. The only problem I see are the over all dimensions. This chair rail is probably a little large proportionally for the room.

I’m thinking about trying to find a smaller bed molding and making the 3/4″ x 3-1/2″ rail smaller. If I can get the top rail down to 1-1/2″ wide and the rail to about 2-1/4″ tall I think it will look nice in the room.

Historically older homes had chair rails installed to protect the wall from the backs of chairs. Most chair rails are set to a height of between 32″ and 36″. Some people also suggest the chair rail should be installed at 1/3 of the wall height when you have higher ceilings (i.e. 10′ ceilings).

Once we make a choice I’ll pick up the materials and post about the chair rail construction and installation.