How to Install Wainscoting

Decide your wainscot height, and run a level line of painter's tape across the wall above it. Divide the width of the wall by the number of panels you'd like, and use that measurement to make hash marks on a strip of wood longer than the wall. You just made a swing stick—a tool that maintains even spacing as you adjust it diagonally to fit the panels onto a wall. You must account for the fact that each wall has one more stile than panel, so first pad out the wall's lower corner with one stile plus the thickness of the adjacent wall's wainscot. Butt the swing stick against this blocking, lower the other end until a hash mark lines up with the wall's far edge, and tape it in place. Use a level to transfer the hash marks to the painter's tape, as shown, which gives you the distance from the outside edge of one stile to the inside edge of the next.