I’m well past the point of no return with my plans for the walls in our bedroom, but let me make this very clear. After this week, I completely regret my decision to panel this room. And it’s not because I don’t like the look of it. In fact, I LOVE how it looks. I couldn’t be more thrilled with how the foyer turned out and I can’t wait to finish it with the grasscloth wallpaper.
No, it’s not the entire design plan I regretted last night when I went to bed. It’s due to the fact that I chose to install wainscoting in the one room that is the most uneven and irregular in our entire house. And it also has the wavy walls I’ve ever dealt with. I’ve never had this much trouble installing crown molding in another room of our house. Generally things are a little uneven or just a little out of balance. I can generally hide this so that these imperfections aren’t obvious when it’s finished. But this space is on a completely different level.
But believe me, I won’t give up. And when it’s finished it WILL look beautiful. This has now become my own personal challenge and I will definitely not let this space defeat me.
The good news is that this long wall went pretty smoothly. I’m grateful that the main wall at the entrance to the room is the wall that is fairly flat and is probably the flattest and squarest in the entire room.
I’m especially grateful for this since it’s the only wall that doesn’t have furniture or curtains layered over it. I did this wall first and felt pretty confident. But that confidence faded pretty quickly as I moved around the room.
As I moved through the room, I couldn’t rely on the measurements to place the trim. I tried measuring from the ground, but that was a terrible idea since the ground is so uneven. I tried measuring from the ceiling but had the same problem. So I tried to just rely on my level. I used a spirit level and a laser level. I was sure that would be the best way.
But when I got to the final wall using this method, where the chair rail in the bedroom meets the chair rail in the foyer, I was about an inch and a half off.
I lost track of how many times I removed and reattached the chair rail. I’ve seriously considered throwing in the towel and coming up with a new plan, but I’m far too stubborn for that.
Anyway, I think I made that wall look pretty decent with the bathroom door. It’s not perfect, but with everything in the room I think it will look nice.
And the headboard wall is fine. Again, I had to remove and reapply this trim countless times, but eventually it looked pretty even (the difference here and the difference there). But that wall will be mostly covered with curtains and a headboard anyway, so I’m not too worried.
But this corner is just… UGH. It’s so uneven you can see it. I mean, there’s no hiding it.
So installing the paneling there was a nightmare. I’m still not happy with how it looks, so I’ll probably end up taking off the baseboard pieces, cutting some off the bottom, and reattaching them to hide the high point in the floor a little better.
I mean, you can tell just by looking that the baseboard trim runs toward the corner of the room. It’s clearly not level with the trim below the window. Of course, there’s no chance of the window being flat, so more “splitting the difference” is needed there too.
And then there’s this wall, the wavy wall in the house. You can tell how wavy it is just by the shadows under the chair rail.
And this wave cannot be concealed with the trim.
The baseboard looks bad, but the chair rail looks even worse. This gap is much larger than it looks in the picture, but even in the picture it looks huge. That’s way too much to fill with caulk.
And then there is this wall. While the others were bad, this one is the worst. The floor slopes down in the middle so I have a big gap under the baseboards. In addition, the flooring does not reach the wall because the room is not square and there is a board that tapers in the middle.
I think this gap is too big to close with a regular quarter round, so I’ll have to get creative.
And then having to work around a door that is level and square but is set into a wall that is not level at all made installing the chair rail even more difficult. I had to get the chair rail somewhat in line with the grille on the door on either side, but since the floor was so uneven, that wasn’t an easy task.
Anyway, this was one of the most frustrating projects I’ve ever done. I can’t remember ever having to remove and reinstall trim as often as I did in this room. And you can see the challenges I struggle with. I’ll get there, but it was a lot more challenging than I expected. And I have to do something about this undulating wall that makes me feel like I’m going backwards instead of forward. This is frustrating.
So, believe me. If you want to panel a room, first make sure that the floor and ceiling are at least somewhat flat. If you have areas that are clearly not level, perhaps consider a plan B and leave the wainscoting for another room.
