Lifetime Storage Sheds Clearance 8x 8 lt New Shady Rest How To Build A Gable Pavilion How To Frame A Barn Door. The Misused Confused Chair Rail. How high should we install chair rail Ask most carpenters and theyll either say 3. Well, Im sorry to say, that unless your ceilings are 1. In most cases, it just doesnt work Chairs and chair rail may sound like they have a lot in common, but the relationship is limited to their approximate heights. Chair rail is the most misused and abused molding in new houses today. Images/82cf8483-e863-4fc4-9716-c93e558592f6/svn/unfinished-jeld-wen-doors-without-glass-b76785-64_400_compressed.jpg' alt='How To Install Exterior Door Without Brick Moulding Profile' title='How To Install Exterior Door Without Brick Moulding Profile' />But it is also the easiest molding to install correctly, and one that can do the most to make a house feel like a home. Yeah butNote Click any image to enlarge. Hit the back button on your browser to return to article. What You want to argue the point You still think chair rail should always sit at 3. How To Install Exterior Door Without Brick Moulding Profile' title='How To Install Exterior Door Without Brick Moulding Profile' />Sorry, there is no standard height dimension. In fact, historically chair rail started out very low. Even in colonial rooms with 1. Ive seen chair rail set at 3. There are some 1. In fact, in rooms with 9 ft. Over the past 6. 0 years we have forgotten a lot about those classical rules, and weve forgotten how chair rail functions in a room. A matter of scaleLets back up a bit. Chair rail is a molding, right The purpose of molding is to establish proper scale and proportion in a room. And because of its close proximity to us chair rail is often the nearest horizontal molding we see chair rail can do more to make a room feel right than either the baseboard or the crown. But get the chair rail wrong, and the room feels wrongI can guarantee it. Heres where proper proportion comes into play. All of the classic architectural ordersthe Tuscan, the Doric, the Ionic, the Corinthian, and the Compositehave strict rules of proportion. These rules of proportion were specified back in the first century BCE by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, a Roman architect and engineer. Vitruvius used modules to ensure proper proportion. He started with the spacing of the columns on a Greek temple, using that distance as a module. According to his instructions for achieving symmetry, harmony, and proportion, the base of a Doric column should be two modules and the height should be fourteen modules. How To Install Exterior Door Without Brick Moulding Profile' title='How To Install Exterior Door Without Brick Moulding Profile' />The other side of the living room needed something large. A statement piece I think real designers would call it. Well, I fell in love with the bookshelves in the. Long Island Vinyl Sheds Free Woodworking Plans To Make Potato Bin Woman Held In Garden Shed Long Island Vinyl Sheds Shed Size Without Permit California. Read on to find out how to calculate the amount of vent area needed for your attic. How high should we install chair rail Ask most carpenters and theyll either say 36 in., 32 in. Responses to Top 10 Questions about PVC Trim David Stuack September 5, 2012. I have found that Spray Nine works great for cleaning PVC. That boils down to a proportional relationship of 1 7 a column that is seven times as tall as it is wide. Put simply, if the base of the column is 1. Of course, not all columns follow that same proportional rule. How does all that relate to chair rail Ironically, the rules of classical architecture are really based on human scale, on the male body, and Im the perfect classical specimen My foot measures 1. I am 7. 7 in. tall a 1 7 ratio. Wow I pity you poor short carpenters with big feet. The moldings in a room are supposed to relate to our bodies, too. That is why you can walk into an old building and it just feels right. The reason it feels right is because it is symmetrical and harmonious to our own size. See Fig. 1, below We innately relate to and enjoy a space we fit into and fit well with. Dig a little deeper and we find proportional rules for every architectural detail. Despite its name, chair rail actually corresponds to the molding at the top of a columns pedestal. Fig. 1. According to Abraham Swan, the Doric order didnt even have a base because Vitruvius said This order is like a strong and robust man, such as Hercules, who was never represented but with his feet bare. Yet many later architects have included pedestals. For instance, when using a pedestal, Asher Benjamin divides the entire height of the Doric order into 8. The diameter of the column equals six parts. According to Benjamin, the pedestal should be two diameters and thirty minutes high. Whats all this mean to a carpenter Heres how I look at it Take a room with a 1. Divide 1. 20 in. by 8. Each part would equal 1 12 in. Therefore, the column should be 9 in. Multiply the column width by 2 12 to determine the height of the pedestal 2. Benjamin also suggests that the pedestal should be 1. Either way, the result is the same. Obviously, unless chairs were much shorter back then, the height of a chair has nothing to do with the height of the chair railWait a minute Dont leave the room yet Im not finished. Were just getting started. Now we need to find out the exact size of each molding, from the plinth or baseboard, to the chair rail. Benjamin doesnt provide that detail, but William Pain does in his 1. The Practical House Carpenter. Until the 1. 92. 0s and 1. Pains, were used by carpenters and architects to duplicate classical detailsand that means all molding profiles and proportions. But pattern books seemed to go by the wayside as minimalism and modern styles reduced the importance of moldings, and finally production trumped design. Its no wonder that we so often hear from carpenters with questions about molding profiles, placement, and proportion. None of us were trained on the use of pattern books. And very few of the architects we work with are familiar with them. But that doesnt mean we all cant learn. According to Pain, for a Doric pedestal, we start by dividing the height of the column into thirteen equal parts, where one part equals the diameter of the column. The height of the pedestal is set at 2 diameters and forty minutes, or 2. For a room with a 1. 18 Ways To Lean Software Development Governance And Development there. Forty minutes would equal about 6 31. That puts the pedestal about 2. Lets make it simple and add 11. Trust me. No one will notice. Going back to William Pains book, we next divide the diameter of the column into 1. Pain then instructs us to divide one of those parts into 5so 34 in. Well, not exactly, but its close enough for our purposes. Besides, that gives us a nice easy number to work withNow lets look at the three moldings that make up a traditional chair rail, and the sizes that Pain recommends for each one. The cavetto, or cove molding, at the bottom should be 4 parts, which makes it 12 in., plus another 18 in. The ovolo, or supporting molding, in the middle sometimes this is an egg and dart profile, or a dentil molding, should be 6 parts, making it 34 in. I cant read that number, so lets make it 78 in. Theres a fillet above the corona, and I cant read that number either, but hey, it looks like 38 in. Add all those crazy numbers together and weve got a chair rail thats 2 58 in. No big surprise there, huh Too low is better than too high. The classical rules of architecture are the key to the proper size and placement of moldings in a room. Benjamin uses a slightly different set of proportional rules than Pain. But the overall effect remains the same. In the classically proportioned room, not only do we relate to the space, but the parts and pieces also speak to and relate to one another, from the crown to the base to the casing to the chair railand ultimately to us. Especially if werent not short with big feet. When it comes to chair rail, I always advise customers to err on the side of too low rather than too high. Installing the chair rail or wainscot too high see photo, right diminishes the size of a room, making it feel uncomfortably squat and stuffed, kind of how you feel after eating Thanksgiving dinner. Height isnt the only problem we encounter when we install chair rail. Probably the biggest problem isnt where to start it, but how to stop ithow to terminate, or resolve, the chair rail into casing, stairs, and other moldings. Here are some simple rules If youre in complete control of a job, try to install the windows so that the window sills are the same height as the chair rail.