DIY: Lattice Wainscoting

I've spoken about the nursery several times over the last, oh let's say month and a half (you can read the final reveal here), and a common theme that ran through these posts was the lattice wainscoting that we were installing (you can read more about that here). The project took a good month and a half. It wouldn't have taken as long, but my hubby only had a few weekend days to work on it, and the rest was done in the evenings. Basically, life got in the way again. Good thing we had decided to start the nursery a month earlier than planned (we originally were only going to start it in May!)

Here is the final outcome of my hubby's hard work...

He really is a trooper and I adore him for all his hard work, long hours, and dedication to the project (especially after I gave him a chance to back out of the project before it officially began). 

This project used the following ingredients:

• quarter-round
• unpainted chair-rail board 
• pre-primed MDF boards for the lattice 
• Benjamin Moore paint in Oxford White
• caulking and wall putty
• and oh about 7,895 finishing nails!

Since the existing baseboard had a slight curve at the top and we needed it to have a flat base for the wainscoting to be installed next to, my husband had the clever idea of installing quarter-round upside down on top of the existing baseboard. This way the wainscoting was able to sit nice and flush against the baseboard.

In order to save some costs, we were able to get a large sheet of unpainted MDF cut down into 8' lengths at our local lumber yard. For the lattice pieces, we used pre-primed MDF boards and cut them to the size and angle that we needed. Figuring out the measurements and angles of each of these pieces was time-consuming and really the most exhausting part of the project. We needed to make sure that all the diamonds were true diamonds and not skewed squares. My husband found that working diamond by diamond, rather than left to right or up to down was better and ensured that each diamond turned out the way it should. 

Once all the chair-rail and all the lattice pieces were installed, my husband went to work puttying the seams and nailholes, and caulking where it was needed. After that came the final painting of the wainscoting!

I can't really put into words about how happy I am with the result. Honestly, it was a lot of hard work, and time consuming. There were lots of steps involved, and each step relied on the previous step. But, it really makes the room something special, and this baby is our something special (cue the awws), so she deserves all the hours that we put into it.