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Someday,
when you have nothing better to do, take a yardstick through
your house and measure the height, above the floor, of all the
finger marks, dents and chipped paint on your walls. You’ll
find that over 90% of them are lower than that yardstick, and
you ‘ll have discovered why last century’s homeowners loved
wainscoting.
Any
type of wood, stained a natural color and capped between three
and four feet high with a "chair-rail," would protect
halls, staircases, kitchens and any other well used room. The
illustration above, of an 1881 dining room, shows how the
chair-rail keeps the weight of a heavy sideboard away from the soft
plaster wall.
Walls
of kitchens and dining-rooms are generally finished in wood to
the height of two and a half or three feet from the floor. This
is a good style, not only because it saves the breaking and
marring of plaster, but because it gives a look of comfort and
solidity to the apartments. Halls, and even parlors, might be
finished in the same way, and thus add to the warmth of the
house and make wall-papering and other decoration an easier and
less expensive operation.
E.H.
Leland, Farm Homes, 1882
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