104 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
March, 1910 I 
Paneling that involves real joinery is closely associated with Colonial 
work. The cut-out star is most unusual 
The device in the upper square panels of this modern dining-room is 
stenciled in green and gold. Aymar Embury, II., architect 
moment that a brown- 
stained series of wood 
strips over a rough board 
backing would add to the 
consistent beauty of a Colo¬ 
nial dining-room. But the 
wainscot’s great merit lies 
in its adaptability to any 
environment; it has many 
strings for its bow. It may 
be of a material and design 
in keeping with the most 
sumptuously furnished 
dining-room, such as the 
one illustrated at the upper 
left corner of the opposite 
page, or it may be simple 
enough to be in perfect 
keeping with an $8,000 
home as in the hall illus¬ 
trated to the right. 
Strip paneling in red oak that has 
been given a soft brown finish 
without gloss by means of oil and 
wax. The wall above is covered 
with a green burlap. C. E. Barott, 
architect 
A very clever semblance of wainscoting has been secured by painting white the plaster 
between baseboard and chair-rail, and running the upright wood members across 
In British usage the 
word wainscot means a 
superior quality of oak im¬ 
ported for fine panel work. 
That is the original meaning, from which, naturally, the term 
came to be applied to panel work of that material or another, 
applied as a covering to interior walls, but especially when of 
somewhat elaborate workmanship. Here in America the word is 
undergoing a still wider stretching, for it is coming to be employed 
as an equivalent of the word dado, meaning a continuous lower 
portion of a wall surface marked off horizontally by base and cap 
moldings. I hat is, if we mark off the lower portion of our dining¬ 
room wall by means of a baseboard and chair-rail, painting white 
the woodwork and the plaster wall between the two boundaries, 
we frequently call the result a wainscot. In order to be a wain¬ 
scot, for the purist, the wall surface between baseboard and chair- 
rail or cap-molding should be covered with wood. Or, again, we 
frequently cover the lower portion of a wall with burlap, book 
linen, grass cloth, or some such fabric of pronounced texture, 
dividing up the surface so covered by means of a pattern of wood 
strips, three or four inches wide, covering the 
vertical joints of the textile with perhaps an 
intermediate horizontal division as well. It is 
not wainscoting, literally, but it has much the 
same effect and it will in all probability be 
accepted under that term even by the dic¬ 
tionary makers before long. 
For your Colonial home there is the good 
old white-enameled wainscot — a work of real 
joinery rather than plain carpentery. The 
panel surfaces are beveled off and the tongue 
thus made is wedged tightly into the surround¬ 
ing stile or rail (A stile in paneling is a thicker 
vertical member, as the parts of an ordinary 
door containing the hinges and the lock. A 
rail is a similar horizontal member.) To give 
the panel thus mortised in a better finish, a 
small molding is run around covering the 
intersection, and neatly mitred at the corners. 
Of course, the size of the panels, and their 
shape, depends upon the height to which the 
wainscot is carried and also upon the length of 
the wall surface. A very nice judgment is 
needed to determine upon a proportion of 
panels that will appear neither too wide nor 
too long, and at the same time be about the 
