What Is Wainscoting?: 4 Types of Wainscoting Explained

Wainscoting is wood paneling applied to the lower portion of a wall inside a home, especially in the dining room, living room, or entryway. In old houses—especially those dating to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—this wall treatment supported fragile walls, contributing to a home’s overall durability.

In the eighteenth-century homes of Europe and New England, wooden-panel wainscoting became popular among wealthy families for both pragmatic and aesthetic reasons. In modern times, wainscoting has become primarily decorative—part of a home’s interior design plan to add texture or visual interest to a room.

Wainscoting can be handmade or factory-made. When creating wainscoting by hand, you attach wood panels to the wall using a chair rail as the top border, a narrow strip of wood called stiles to vertically separate the panels, and a baseboard as the bottom border. This results in traditional wall paneling consisting of a wall overlay of solid boards. Today, factories and subcontractors make wainscoting from a variety of materials, including plywood, plastic, PVC, or medium-density fiberboard (MDF).

Wainscoting can be practical, decorative, or both while serving the following purposes:

1. 1. Adding insulation: Historically, homes in areas that experience extreme weather—especially cold weather—once lacked adequate protection against these temperatures. Adding wainscoting to the walls reinforced the delicate plaster and provided another layer of insulation against significantly hot and cold temperatures.
2. 2. Protecting the walls: When placed along the lower wall, wainscoting helps protect the walls from everyday use, like chair or other furniture bumps.
3. 3. Serving as home decor: Some designers recommend wainscoting panels to add visual interest to walls. Homeowners who want a room to have a formal, traditional feel to it can add raised panel wainscoting, while those who prefer minimalist design can opt for flat-panel wainscoting.

Wainscoting can differ in terms of construction and aesthetic. Here are four of the most common styles of wainscoting:

1. 1. Wall-panel wainscoting: This simple wainscoting is easy to tackle as a DIY project. For wall-panel wainscoting, strips of molding (also called moulding) or wood end up attached directly to the bare wall (drywall or plaster, depending on your home) to create a long series of rectangle frames.
2. 2. Flat-panel wainscoting: Also called board and batten or Shaker panel, flat-panel wainscoting consists of thin boards of plywood or MDF attached to the walls. Then you decorate the boards with strips of molding or narrow strips of wood over the flat panels to create vertical or square framing.
3. 3. Beaded-panel wainscoting: Beadboard is a long sheet of wood paneling with vertical grooves. The classic look of beadboard wainscoting is a result of applying strips of wood or trim to the beadboard to create panels.
4. 4. Raised-panel wainscoting: The most traditional type of wainscoting, raised-panel wainscoting requires a craftsman to bevel the edges of each individual panel before adding wood trim on top of the raised panels. You find this style of wall covering most often in old, formal rooms—for example, the dark wood paneling of a Victorian home’s sitting room or white paneling in the dining room of an English mansion.

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