Boxes on our Walls - Part 1

When we bought our house about 3 years ago, it already had some nice chair rail in the dining room and the foyer, as well as going down the main hallway to the back of the house, going up the stairs to the second floor and on the walls of the second floor landing. I always liked the extra little detail it added to those areas but felt that it never really “popped”. This was because the paint color above and below the chair rail was the same – a very light and plain manilafolderyellowcreamivory kind of thing. B.O.R.I.N.G.

The walls were really more yellow/cream/ivory than they appear in this photo - rather boring!

So when we finally decided last month to paint all those plain jane walls a different color (Sherwin Williams Balanced Beige), I knew that I wanted to take full advantage of that nice little detail and actually “use” those chair rails to make a statement. My decision… paint the wall space under the chair rail a nice crisp semi-gloss white. Not only would it make a nice statement and highlight the chair rail, but it would prevent having too much of a broad expanse of beige from floor to ceiling (we have one of those double story foyers with two HUGE walls as well as 9’ ceiling throughout).

But the more I thought about it, the more I thought… “Why stop at a plain white treatment? Why not add some molding boxes and REALLY make a statement?!”  I had seen plenty of other bloggers out there do the same thing and figured, “Hey, it doesn’t look that hard. Besides, I have letters after my name… I can handle it!” {Never mind that those letters have absolutely nothing to do with construction or wood cutting or DIY – but I tried not to think about that minor detail}.

While I am sure there are plenty of fabulous tutorials on blogs out there, my go-to posts were found HERE (Thrifty Décor Chick ~video~) and HERE (Décor Chick). These ladies helped me out so much (indirectly, of course) with their useful tips that it made this project so much easier. Thanks ladies!! The end result was this...

Boxes on my walls! (before painting)

Doesn't it make such a big difference? The above photo was taken before the boxes had even been caulked and before the walls were painted, but still such a nice change already.


In my next post, I’ll give you all the “Deets” on how I made them. Stay tuned…



**You can see the rest of this series here:
Part 2 - Sizing
Part 3 - Cutting
Part 4 - Assembly