When you're making over a room, walls are a great place to start. Painting is always an option, but decorating a wall with fabric wainscoting provides not only texture but also color and pattern. DIY Decorating & Design host Nancy Golden demonstrates how to make an easy pleated fabric wainscoting to add a special touch to a dining room or any room. Pleated fabric is stapled along strips of lath that have been attached to the wall -- one at chair-rail height and the other directly above the baseboard. When choosing fabric, keep in mind that you'll need a lot -- three times the width of the wall -- to make full-looking pleats. A soft fabric such as cotton or polyester will be easier to pleat, although a more substantial fabric may look more luxurious. Whatever fabric you choose, make sure it can't be seen through. Nancy chose drapery fabric. Materials:
Fabric three times the width of the wall
Two lath strips the width of the wall
Two pieces of cap molding the width of the wall
Hammer
Finishing nails
Steam iron
Staple gun and staples
Finishing materials for cap molding: paint or stain and appropriate tools
Decorative cording with selvage edge
Glue gun and glue
Nail set
Wood putty
- Nail the lath strips to the wall, one at chair-rail height and the other above the baseboard. If you plan to finish the bottom edge with cap molding, as shown in our example, leave enough space between the baseboard and lath to accommodate the edge of the cap molding. If the bottom edge is to be finished with glued-on decorative cording, attach the lath directly above the baseboard.
- The height of the pieces of fabric should match the height of the wainscoting, from the top lath to the bottom, covering both. Cut the fabric panels to the correct height. There's no need to seam them. No hem or finished edge is necessary, as the stapled edges will be covered by cap molding.
- Iron a folded-over hem at one vertical end of the fabric. Start attaching the fabric at the edge of a wall -- at a door molding or a corner of the room. Hold the hemmed edge in place along the starting line and staple the fabric to the top edge of the chair-rail-height lath and to the bottom edge of the bottom lath, making sure to pull it taut.
- To create pleats, fold the fabric back onto itself, giving about 1" of doubled fabric (figure A). Staple the top of the pleat to the top lath (figure B), then hold the pleat in place, making sure to keep it vertical all the way down, and staple the bottom edge to the bottom lath (figure C). Be sure to stretch the fabric tight between the lath strips to keep the pattern of pleats firm against the wall.
- When you get to the end of one panel of fabric, staple it in place, and hide the selvage edge with the folded-over edge of the next panel of fabric.
- At the end of the wall or the edge of a door or window frame, fold a hem along the vertical edge of the fabric and staple in place.
- The stapled edges of the fabric will be covered with cap molding. The L-shaped lip of the cap molding will slip over the lath strip (figure D).
- Finish the cap molding with paint or stain before mounting it. If you like, add a length of decorative cording to the smooth end of the cap molding by applying a line of hot glue along the selvage edge of the cording (figure E) and holding it in place against the back side of the molding.
- Fit the cap molding onto the lath strips, and attach to the wall with finishing nails. Use a nail set to recess the nail heads. Fill the nail holes with spackling compound (or wood putty for a natural finish). When dry, sand smooth and touch up with paint.
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