I want to paint & update my kitchen. What should I do with the chair rail in the dining portion?

Posted by admin on July 25th, 2011

It is a country kitchen with a chair rail in the dining portion. the rail has a maple stain to match the other wood work & cabinets in the kitchen and there's wallpaper below the chair rail with paint above. I definitely want to get rid of the wallpaper and paint it all. Should I paint same color above & below chair rail? Paint the chair rail or leave it with the wood stain? I'm thinking of painting the kitchen a yellow or gold all over or maybe white below chair rail and yellow or gold above it. I also have a shelf running the length of 2 walls about a foot from the ceiling. Right now it is painted white.

I would paint the chair rail white. Usually in interior decor the space below the chair rail is painted a deeper hue in same color or an accent color. if you are using yellow, paint this on the top and your accent color ( good accent color options are red, blue, or even black) if you paint the lower half white or really light it will very quickly show any dirt/splashes and if you have kids or grandkids this will happen at record speed or paint the lower half such as a sunflower and then the top half yellow or lighter hue yellow. Hope this helps:)

I would leave the rail as it is but I wouldn't paint the wall below it white - it would show the dirt too easily and the balance of the room will be better if the bottom part of the wall is darker than the top part.

One kitchen painting idea would be to add wainscotting or bead board to the wall below the chair rail. this would keep you from having to remove the wallpaper as it can be installed right over it. You could stain the bead board the same color as the maple trim or paint both chair rail and bead board with a white enamel for durability.

If you ever got tired of the maple, you could paint kitchen cabinets white, add antiquing or add bead board to them to for a country or cottage decorating theme.

In the link below there is a photo of a kitchen with cherry cabinets and they painted the island and some cabinets white to break up the dark wood look.

Your kitchen painting idea would also look nice with the maple chair rail and the darker color on the bottom - lighter on the top. You can paint the shelves the darker color if you want them to stand out.