Macomb Township, Macomb County, MI
Wainscoting in Macomb Township, MI
Open-plan houses have a problem nobody mentions at the walkthrough: long, tall, uninterrupted walls. A Macomb Township great room or two-story stairwell can run twenty feet of blank drywall, and paint alone does not give the eye anything to hold onto.
Wainscoting and wall paneling solve that structurally rather than decoratively. A raised or flat-panel wainscot with a proper cap breaks a tall wall into two readable bands and gives the room a horizontal line to sit furniture against. Board and batten does the same job in a plainer register and suits the transitional style most of these houses are already decorated in. The highest-impact wall in this housing stock is almost always the two-story stairwell — it is the tallest blank surface in the house and the one everybody walks past, and running full-height paneling or a rising wainscot up it changes the whole entry sequence. Dining rooms take a traditional wainscot well because the height is defined by the chair rail. Powder rooms are the cheapest room in the house to transform this way, since the wall area is tiny and the effect is total. In every case the panel layout gets set out to the actual wall so stiles land evenly and nothing ends on a half panel at the corner, which is the giveaway on a kit installation.
We set out the panel spacing on site against your actual wall length and switch heights, show you the layout, and mill the components at our Chesterfield shop so the joints close properly.
Macomb Township is a short run west of our Chesterfield shop, so there is no travel premium and scheduling is easy.
Wainscoting questions from Macomb Township homeowners
- What height should wainscoting be?
- It depends on the ceiling and the room's job. Traditional chair-rail height, around thirty-two to thirty-six inches, suits dining rooms. In a nine-foot room a taller wainscot at forty-eight to sixty inches reads better and is what we usually recommend for stairwells and great rooms. Full-height paneling works where you want the wall to be the feature. We hold samples at different heights in the actual room before deciding.
- Can you panel a two-story stairwell wall?
- Yes, and it is the best single wall to do in most of these houses. It is the tallest visible surface and the one guests see first. The layout has to account for the rake of the stair so the panels follow the stringer line evenly rather than stepping awkwardly, which is the part that separates a built installation from a kit one.
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Wainscoting we have built
Our own work, photographed on site. Not every job shown is in Macomb Township — we do not label a photograph with a city we cannot verify it was taken in.
Wainscoted Great Room & Wet Bar
Full-height recessed-panel wainscoting through a great room and dining area, carried around into a wet bar with a stone-veneer surround and a polished wood bar top.
Raked Stairwell Wainscot Paneling
Wainscot paneling raked to follow a stair run, laid out so the panels climb with the stringer beneath white balusters and an oak handrail.
Curved-Wall Wainscot Paneling
Recessed-panel wainscoting following a curved wall, with the chair rail and baseboard bent to the same radius. Shown primed, before finish paint.
Wainscoting elsewhere in the area
More in Macomb Township
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