Wainscoting helps protect the paint on your walls. Paint scratches from chairs on your dining room walls are a homeowner’s nightmare. You can use different methods to fix these nicks and dings, but the most common solution is patching up your walls and repainting. This kind of repair can become both time-consuming and costly; instead, use preventative measures that will protect your walls, such as adding protective buffers to your chairs and using durable materials. Cover-up Chairs An easy and simple solution to keep chairs from scratching your dining room walls is to cover them with slipcovers. Slipcovers soften the contact to your walls, and, if the chairs hit the wall, create minimal buffs or marks. If you cannot find slipcovers within your budget or color scheme, cover the top half of your chairs with a pillowcase. Choose a high-thread-count case -- 300 or more -- to offer the best quality and protection for your walls. When deciding on the color or design of your slipcovers or pillowcases, choose a simple pattern that incorporates the room’s secondary color.
If your wall color is a soft beige or taupe, the primary color, and your curtains have a yellow-orange pattern; the yellow-orange is your secondary color. Choose a pattern or color similar to your curtain’s design. Add Bumpers or Felt Adding clear- or light-colored rubber or felt bumpers to the backs of your chairs helps prevent scratches and damage to your dining room walls. Most hardware stores have many different colors, types and sizes of bumpers that are unnoticeable on your chairs. The trick is to find the spots on the back of your chair where it hits the wall, then simply remove the paper on the back of the bumper and stick them on your chair. Clear plastic bumpers -- use dime-sized -- blend in nicely; if you do not care for the clear bumpers, they also come in other colors -- black, light and dark browns -- that match most chair finishes and colors. The felt bumpers are another option, but they come in an array of browns so they blend in better with natural wood finishes. A Chair Rail While a chair rail is normally an aesthetic feature for your dining room, it can be applied to your dining room walls to protect them from chair dings.
A chair rail is placed at 1/3 the height of the wall to keep the overall design balanced; for example, in a room with an 8-foot ceiling, install a chair rail 32 inches from the floor. Chairs normally rest at 36 inches, so use a large piece of trim that is 4- to 5-inches long placed at a height of 32 inches. If you decide to use a chair rail, install wood painted with a high-gloss paint that matches the floor trim as well as the window and door frames in your dining room. A chair rail adds a decorative touch to your dining room and provides the opportunity to add another color or pattern to your walls. Typically, another paint color, wallpaper or wainscoting panel is added below the chair rail for a traditional, classic look. These color and design options should be planned, so your color scheme and patterns match and complement each other; for example, if you plan to use complementary color scheme, paint a light blue on your walls above the chair rail, with a yellow-orange wallpaper pattern below the chair rail with white trim and accents.
Apply a Wallcovering or Border Applying a high-quality wall covering or border to your dining room wall protects it from chair scratches. If you purchase a Type II commercial wall covering -- used in high-traffic areas such as hotel hallways -- made of vinyl surface laminate, a woven substrate of fabric or a non-woven synthetic substrate will withstand minor bumps and dings. While commercial wall coverings may be expensive or not have as many color choices or patterns, some less-expensive residential wall coverings with vinyl surfaces and tight-woven fabrics can withstand usage better than their commercial cousins. These wall coverings, like a paint color, need to incorporate the primary color in your dining room; for example, if your primary color is robin's egg blue, then that should be the main color within your wall covering. If you do not wish to wallpaper your entire dining room, add a wallpaper border at the chair-rail height. Choose a design or pattern for your border, which incorporates some of the primary, secondary and accent colors within the room.
For instance, if your primary color is a soft blue, your secondary color a grass green, and the accent color a red-orange; find a wallpaper border design that includes these three shades. References House Beautiful: Caring for Your Painted WallsLittle Miss Penny Wenny: How to Install Chair Rail MoldingPaint Pro: Wallpaper, Choosing Quality Wallpaper Photo Credits Jupiterimages/Stockbyte/Getty Images Suggest a Correction Signature Design by Ashley "Tambo-Pewter" 2-Piece... Signature Design by Ashley "Ludden-Cocoa" Rocker ... Signature Design by Ashley "Zelen" 4-Piece Queen ... Signature Design "Rory" Lamp Pair Signature Design by Ashley "Esmarelda" Queen Bed Signature Design by Ashley "Landoff-Red" Sofa and... Sierra Sleep "Silver Limited" Queen Mattress and ... CYM "Stanley II" Twin/Twin Bunk Bed Set Powell "Riley" Large Audio Video Stand Ashley "Cross Island" 5-Piece Dining Room Set Ashley "Airdon" 3-Piece Coffee Table Set Signature Design by Ashley "McCamey-Black" 2-Piec...
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