How To Install Chair Rail On Wall
How to Install a Chair Rail
Learn how to install chair rail molding that will accept your home from ordinary to elegant in i weekend.
Chair rails molding can transform the appearance of your living room, dining room or hallway, and installation goes quickly when you prefinish the wood.
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All about chair rail molding
The original purpose of chair rail molding, specifically dining room chair runway, was to protect walls from being damaged by chair backs. Today, this chair runway molding is a fast way to stylishly define a dining room, living room or entry hall, especially when used to separate wallpaper from paint, or between 2 different colors of paint.
This article volition show you how to install chair rail molding, with tips to make the job get faster and easier and with less wasted material. Chair rail is available in a multifariousness of forest and styles, from inexpensive paint-grade pine to large, very expensive hardwood profiles. You tin also make your own chair rail molding with standard trim or clear "one-by" textile. The special-order cherry molding nosotros used cost $5 per ft.
To cut the chair rails, you'll need a miter saw and a coping saw with actress blades (they pause hands). A finish nailer isn't absolutely necessary but will give you faster, improve results.
Make a sketch, then go shopping
Sketch out the floor program of the room, noting the verbal length of each section of wall. Add a foot to each length for waste matter to become the minimum size you lot need for each wall. Once you determine on a style, you lot'll need to practice some juggling to make the standard lengths that the lumberyard sells fit the lengths that you need. The best fashion to go along runway of what piece goes where and avert wasting expensive wood is to brand notes on the sketch. Here are some shopping tips:
- When possible, buy pieces of chair rail molding long enough to span the entire wall; otherwise, you lot'll have to splice
sections (Photo seven). - If yous plan to stain and varnish the chair molding, select pieces with similar grain blueprint and colour.
- Check each piece for flaws such as splits and tear-out.
- To avert heavy sanding, select pieces that accept a smooth surface. Watch out for deep "chatter marks" (a wavy surface left by the milling machine).
- Home centers only behave a few pine and oak chair track. For a larger selection, ask nigh special-order chair railing profiles or visit a lumberyard that caters to professional contractors.
- Many types and combinations of moldings can be used equally chair rail, even if they aren't called chair rail.
Also apply your sketch to plan the location of coped cuts, so that you don't stop up with pieces that have to exist coped at both ends. If possible, locate coped pieces on walls where the non-coped end can exist marked in identify. That way yous can shave the coped cut downwards, or even recut it if you have to, before you lot cutting information technology to length. Fifty-fifty pros take to tweak their cuts, so get out yourself a little extra wood to piece of work with.
Get Better Results With an Air Nailer
Until the 1990s, air nailers were and so expensive that many carpenters didn't use them. They're a whole lot cheaper now; even if you practice only occasional carpentry, they're well worth the investment. Non merely can you nail trim faster and easier, but you'll get better-looking results. The skinny nails are less likely to split wood, and they exit smaller holes that are easier to hibernate. Hammer dents and bent nails are no longer a concern.
Prepare the walls
Photo 1: Mark studs
Locate studs and mark them with masking record. If new wallpaper or pigment is part of the project, complete those jobs before you install chair track.
How Loftier is a Chair Rail?
Apply wallpaper or paint high enough (or low enough) for the chair rail to cover the edge. Chair track superlative is usually 36 in. in a higher place the floor but tin be installed anywhere from 30 in. to 42 in., with wallpaper either to a higher place or below.
Lightly mark the bottom of the chair rail every iii ft. around the perimeter of the room. Measure from the baseboard, the ceiling or the floor—whichever is most consequent. Detect and mark all the studs (Photo 1).
Split the Departure
In older houses, where level floors and ceilings may be only a distant memory, perfectly level chair rail can actually wait kleptomaniacal. The all-time solution is to ignore the level and follow a compromise line halfway betwixt level and the closest visual reference betoken—usually the baseboard. If in incertitude, tack up a examination piece or a piece of record, and so stand back and see if information technology looks right.
Prefinish for a faster, neater chore
Photo two: Finish before installing
Prefinish the chair rail molding for less mess and smoother results. Apply the final coat subsequently installing the chair rails and filling nail holes.
For a job with sharp, crisp edges, stain and varnish (or paint) the chair rails earlier nailing information technology up (Photo ii). Before the first coat, sand all the chair rail lightly but thoroughly with 180-dust sandpaper. Test the finish on bit pieces to brand sure the colour looks right. To lucifer existing trim, yous'll accept to experiment on scraps of chair rails. Don't assume that stain colors will look the same on your chair rail as they do on store displays.
Cope corners for a perfect fit
Photo 3: Cope cuts
Cope inside corners by cutting along the profile left by a 45-degree miter cutting. Hold the coping saw at an angle to "backcut" the chair rail.
Photograph 4: Fine-tune the cut
Perfect the fit of coped ends with a file, rasp, utility knife or sandpaper. Don't try to shave off thin slices with a coping saw.
Photograph 5: Solve problems with hidden shims
Shut a gap with a shim. Slip the shim under the uncoped finish to force it against the coped end. This only works if the gap is along the lower half of the chair railing joint.
Wall corners are nigh never perfectly square, but coped joints cover this trouble by fitting tightly against the adjoining piece fifty-fifty if the corner is a few degrees off.
Cut the piece for the first side of the corner at 90 degrees and boom it in place—but keep the nails a human foot back from the corner for now. Cut the coped stop of the next piece and tweak it until the joint is tight (Photos 3 and iv).
Here are some tips for making smooth, authentic cope cuts:
- Make certain the saw teeth signal toward the handle. That way, the blade will cut smoothly on the pull stroke.
- Practice on scraps. You'll be surprised at how much your copes better subsequently a couple of do cuts.
- Clamp the chair rail to a solid work surface. Cuts are smoother and easier if the molding can't
shift or wiggle. - Don't force the saw forward. Make smooth, even strokes, applying light forward pressure.
If the outset wall isn't perfectly plumb, you lot may need to glue a sparse shim under the bottom edge to tighten the joint (Photo 5). Don't cut off the shim in identify—you lot may damage the wall. Instead, mark it, and then pull information technology out
to cut it.
One time the coped articulation looks correct, hold it in place and mark the cut at the other terminate. Just one end should be coped. The other finish volition ever be either an exterior corner or a 90-degree cut. Here's more on creating coped corners.
Examination outside corners for a tight fit
Photo vi: Use scraps for test cuts
Notice the miter cut angle on outside corners with an bending finder or only by cut and recutting test pieces until they course a tight corner.
Outside corners frequently flare out slightly, and so that the chair rail needs to exist cut at more than than 45 degrees. To go the exact bending, cut two scrap pieces at 46 degrees, then adjust the angle of the cut until the joint is tight (Photo 6). Both sides should be cutting at the same bending.
Spread wood mucilage on one of the ends before nailing the chair railing pieces to the wall. Don't smash within two in. of the end unless you lot're using a brad nailer or predrilling, to avoid splitting the forest.
Create a "Return" at an Archway
To end chair rail at an entrance or corner, course a render an inch from the corner. When yous cutting the return, go out the saw blade down until the blade stops spinning to avoid nicking the return as it falls away from the blade.
Starting time, cutting a render slice the width of the chair runway. Clamp a ane×4 to the contend and then the saw blade won't mangle the return.
Next, push button the return into place with a picayune wood mucilage and hold information technology for a minute until the glue starts to fix. Don't nail the return—it's too small.
Splice long runs of chair rail
Photo 7: Scarf joint
Join sections of chair track with a thirty-degree "scarf" joint at a stud. For a potent joint, use gum in add-on to nails.
If your wall is too long for a single piece of chair track, you tin can inconspicuously bring together two pieces by cutting the ends at 30 degrees and gluing them together (Photo vii).
Select two chair railing pieces with similar grain. Measure and cutting the two pieces so that the splice occurs on a stud. Position the top slice so that all the edges line upward, and so nail it to the wall. Wipe abroad gum drips and touch up with filler and additional cease if necessary.
Cutting a "Bevel" at Thin Window Casing
Some types of chair rail molding are thicker than window and door casing. To solve this problem, bevel-cut the chair rail as shown in the photograph with a shallow 45-degree bevel cutting. Apply stop to the cutting before yous smash it upwardly to avert getting finish on the casing.
Fill smash holes
Photo 8: Fill holes
Fill nail holes with colored putty. Blend different colors of putty to perfectly match the color of the woods. And so apply the final coat of clear finish.
Before applying the terminal coat of finish, fill all nail holes. Employ colored wood putty—either oil or water-based—to fill holes in natural woodwork (Photo 8). If you lot don't have the right shade, blend different colors with your fingers for a improve match. Wipe away excess filler with a rag dipped in thinner for the oil-based putty, or h2o for the water-based product.
Apply spackling paste for painted chair rail molding. Sand it flush, spot-prime the nail holes, so repaint.
Effigy A: Plate or Chair Rail Blueprint
The techniques used to install a chair rail molding can also be used to brand a plate rail or a heavier, built-up chair rail. In addition to being visually interesting, a built up chair track molding like this tin be used to display photos, artwork and knickknacks. Plate rails are normally installed nigh five feet above the flooring.
Required Tools for this Projection
Have the necessary tools for this DIY chair rail molding project lined up before yous outset—yous'll save fourth dimension and frustration.
Required Materials for this Projection
Avoid last-infinitesimal shopping trips by having all your materials ready ahead of time. Hither's a listing.
Source: https://www.familyhandyman.com/project/how-to-install-a-chair-rail/
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