Installed Chair Rail in High Ceiling Powder Room

Learn How to Break up Tall Walls by Installing Chair Rail

By Mark J. Donovan

This weekend I installed chair rail in a powder room. However I didn’t install it at chair rail height. Instead I installed the chair rail 18 inches from the powder room’s ceiling. The powder room is fairly small, only about 20 square feet, however the walls are over 9 feet tall. As a result the room seemed somewhat small, but giant at the same time, when you stood in the bathroom. So to add a little flair, and more specifically, to break up the tall walls I installed the chair rail.

Installing chair rail is easy to do and doesn’t cost that much, particularly in my case since the powder room was so small. After fastening the chair rail to the walls I caulked the nail holes and seams and then painted it a brilliant white. The chair rail stock already came primed.

I then painted the walls a light earth tone color, both above and below the chair rail. Between the earth tone wall color and the brilliant white, the chair rail really stood out nicely and really added some character to the room.

Lastly I installed a new bathroom mirror that came with a wood frame to complete the powder room make over. The wood framed contrasted nicely against the earth tone wall paint.

Installing an Aluminum Dock Soon

Looking Forward to a New Aluminum Dock Going in this Spring

By Mark J. Donovan

Last year we purchased a new lake home that had a large and ancient U-shaped wood dock associated with it. The neighbors have told us the dock was at least 30 years old. So this fall I took the old wooden dock out of the water for its very last time. I then carted it all off to the local town dump. Now we are in the process of having an aluminum framed dock being fabricated. The aluminum dock will be the same size as the original dock. As a matter of fact it will have the exact footprint as the old wooden dock so that there are no permitting issues with installing it. The new dock is constructed out of about a dozen 2x4 aluminum 4’x8’ frames. The aluminum dock frames will be attached to galvanized metal posts that will rest on foot pads on the floor of the lake. Cross bracing will be installed between the leg posts to prevent it from racking and keeping it rock stable in the water. For the deck paneling we have chosen to go with cedar wood deck panels. The deck panels are designed to simply drop into place and can be easily removed in the fall.

The newly installed aluminum dock should last us decades. It will also be much easier to install and remove from the lake every spring and fall due to the fact that it will be so much lighter than the old pressure treated wooden dock. If all goes as planned the new dock should be installed 2 weeks after ice out this spring. I anticipate we will be walking on our new dock by late April. I will upload pictures of the newly installed aluminum dock when it is in.