Wainscoting: Chances are you have heard the term before, you don’t necessarily know what it means. Traditionally, plinths referred to a home design element in which solid wood panels have been installed through the bottom half of a quarter of walls to help keep the room warmer (we’re talking about pre-insulation days). Still, about Years the term has grown to include various forms of decorative wall panels.
Basic
Sticklers can still argue that while the sockets are a kind of wall panels, not all wall panels qualify as plinths. The term plinths were initially applied correctly for chair-height wood panels through the bottom half of a wall. The panels served to give insulation and protect the walls from scratches and scratches on shoe-lined feet and the back of chairs. Wainscoting can still serve as wall protection in our well-insulated modern homes, but more than that fits to add a new dimension to our home décor.
Styles
The styles and uses of the plinths have certainly changed over the years. With the modern wonder of the secluded walls keeping us cozy, we can be artistic with our wainscoting and do more than make wooden blankets in the lower half of our walls. As a design feature in its own right, the plinths even come with their decorating guidelines. The raised panel, the flat board, the overlay panel, and the “plate and batten” are commonly recognized as the 4 main styles of wainscoting. You will see the height raised chair panel and flat panel sockets in most traditional examples. Today, we like to play with the rules of the height of Lambros and often bring the wainscot to the ceiling, creating a modern look (like the ones shown above) with walls entirely. But many plinth-style options combine the traditional with the contemporary, such as the perfectly minimalist “maple and batten” sockets in the modern room in the photo below.
Materials
Technically speaking, for their wall panels to be called plinths have to be solid wood. Still, these days we are not in the ceremony, so the term has been expanded to include MDF (medium density fiber), plywood, and even the panel’s plastic wall. In addition to being less expensive than solid wood panels, the aforementioned artificial materials are ideal for “faux-wainscoting” under being much more comfortable to install than their natural counterparts.
Hacks
Wainscoting doesn’t have to be an arduous process. The era of convenience and instant gratification is upon us; What could once have been a long project for a professional can now be a day-long DIY (assuming you’re highly motivated). An essential plinth trick is the traditional substantial wood trade that initially defined the term for a less expensive and more flexible material. There are even wallless ways to create fake socket effects for tight budgets, and — talk convenience — Etsy also sells made-to-order 3-D stick-in wall panels.
