Wainscoting

First, allow me to apologize for the majority of cell phone photos used in this post. I know, they suck. Second, let's talk about paneling:

Our dining room is small, but we really wanted to add some wainscoting/judge's paneling in the space.

Here is the 'before' shot of the dining room:

Sometimes we like to joke that our previous owner was drunk, since almost everything he did makes absolutely no sense. Case in point: the chair rail. It's hard to see in the picture, but it's super low - and it looked weird. We decided to raise it up to an acceptable height and then fill in the bottom half with wainscoting.

I really have my husband to thank for this one, since he spent a good 30 minutes doing all of the math necessary to lay out those squares. Math and I don't really get along. Honestly, I would say the math is the hardest part - after that it's just nail gun, glue, caulk and paint.

See the pencil lines on the wall?

Then we just nailed the moulding over the lines:

And here is the final product!

This is my mom's favorite little detail. We decided to do it 'the right way' and go around our outlet. It came out awesome! (The coverplate is missing in the picture)

We are planning to continue the wainscoting around the corner, up the stairs and also along the wall in front of the stairs (see below for a visual):

Don't even get me started on the stairs...