If you want to improve your home depending on your own personal tastes and preferences, wainscoting might be one of the wall panels you should consider. Even though wainscoting has been around since probably the 1700s, it is still widely used today not only for insulation but for decorative purposes as well. So, how much does it cost to install and paint wainscoting in most homes today?
For those who would want to install and paint wainscoting themselves without the use of a contractor, the cost would be somewhere between a dollar to $30 per square foot. There will be additional expenses if you hire a contractor. Meanwhile, painting it will cost somewhere between $150 and $300.
Wainscoting might be a classic and traditional choice when it comes to wooden panels but it does have its appeal. You can even DIY the wainscoting in your own home if ever you want to save money. And when you want to have an expert do the job for you, you will find that wainscoting won’t be too expensive for your budget to handle.
How Much Does it Cost to Install?
If you are looking for a good decorative panel for your wall while also adding an extra layer of insulation, wainscoting should be a good choice that is still very much popular nowadays even though it can be dated as far back as the 18th century. Nevertheless, it gives your home a nice classic and traditional appeal without compromising on its overall aesthetics.
For those who are looking to install wainscoting in their homes, you basically have two choices. The first one is for you to do it yourself by actually installing wainscoting without the help of a professional or an expert. Of course, the second choice is by hiring someone to do the work for you as you no longer need to do anything on your part.
If you do want to install wainscoting, you have to understand that this is going to take a lot of work that is still very much more than worth the time and effort it took for you. And the best part is that doing the work yourself will save you a lot of money.
In that sense, most DIY installations of wainscoting won’t be too expensive as the costs can be somewhere between 1$ and 30$ per square foot. You may also have to add material costs to the total sum you will be spending. Still, it really depends on your location and on the materials you will be buying for the DIY installation. That explains why there is a huge discrepancy between the cost per square foot that you will end up paying if you do choose to install wainscoting yourself.
For example, if you were to choose medium density fiberboard for your wainscoting material, the cost would be about $5 per square foot only. However, if you are not afraid to spend money for a premium material that is more expensive, custom-made hardwood panels can cost as much as $30 (or even higher) per square foot. This is why the cost of installing wainscoting will really depend highly on your own preferences and, of course, your budget.
Meanwhile, if you would want to hire an expert to do the job for you, the cost of the wainscoting will be pretty much the same but you also have to factor in additional expenses. This includes labor fees, which will actually be the most expensive part about hiring a contractor to do the job for you, and markups on the materials that the professionals will be using to install the wainscoting in your home.
The costs you will end up with when you hire a contractor will depend highly on where you are and how long the job will take. But most wainscoting installation jobs can range somewhere between $1,000 and $5,000 in total depending on certain factors such as finishes, the complexity of the work done, and the choice of wood you want to install on your walls.
How long does it take to install wainscoting?
For those who want to hire a professional to install wainscoting, the average time it would take to install it in your home is somewhere near 17 hours in total from start to finish. And, in most cases, contractors will probably charge you somewhere close to $90 per hour depending on your location and on the factors that we have mentioned previously.
Of course, if you were to install the wainscoting yourself and without the help of a professional, you will find that it would take you a long time to do the job especially if you are simply a novice in DIY home improvements. It might take about double the time that a professional needs to install the wainscoting if you were to do it yourself.
There might even be some cases where it would take days for you to finish the entire job. However, you will end up saving money in the process of doing so while also learning a new skill that you might be able to use again in the future.
Still, if time is of the essence and you are not shy about spending money to have wainscoting installed in your home, it would be better and more efficient for you to hire a professional instead of trying your hand at a DIY solution.
Is wainscoting hard to install?
Make no mistake about it. Wainscoting will probably be a bit difficult to install because it would take a lot of work on your part as you would have to trim the boards yourself while also doing all of the calculations when it comes to your wall’s dimensions. And it might even be a risky job especially if you are not used to using common tools that are used for most home improvement jobs.
However, even if wainscoting can be challenging for most novices, you will find that the learning curve won’t be too steep because it doesn’t take an expert to learn how to install it and how to do some of the work needed to get the job done.
It might take some time for a novice to complete the task himself but, in the case of professionals, the job won’t seem that difficult especially when you consider how basic this task is for some of the more experienced contractors out there.
How Much Does it Cost to Paint Wainscoting?
After installing the wainscoting in your home, the next thing that you need to do is to have it painted. Of course, similar to how you can install the wainscoting yourself, you can also paint it yourself if you want to save money. Or you can have an expert do the job for you if you want to make sure that the paint is expertly done by a professional.
For those who would want to save more money by doing the paint themselves, the costs of painting will depend largely on the type of paint you use. However, in most cases, expect that you will spend somewhere between $10 to $20 if you were to paint the wainscoting yourself.
Meanwhile, for those who would want to pay an expert to do the paint, you’d have to spend money on the paint itself while also incurring additional expenses for the labor. In that case, the total costs can range from $150 to $300 depending on a lot of different factors such as your location, the size of the wall, the type of paint you use, and the complexity of the job.
What type of paint is best for wainscoting?
When it comes to wainscoting, the type of paint you use highly depends on your own personal preferences because, after all, it is your own home. However, depending on how you would want to apply the paint, there are some types of paint that are best used for your wainscoting.
If you want to spray the paint on your wainscoting, the best choice would be semi-gloss paint because spray paint will fully cover the entire surface of the panels. However, for those who would want to brush the paint on the wainscoting panels, it would be better to use a satin finish because painting semi-gloss using a brush can easily show imperfections, especially when done by a novice.
But if you were to hire a professional to do the job for you, the differences between semi-gloss and satin would probably be too small regardless of whether the guy used spray paint or a brush to apply the paint.
How Much Value Does Wainscoting Add To A Home?
If you wanted to add wainscoting to your home to increase its value in case you would want to sell it in the future, you would be happy to know that this simple job will actually make your home more valuable in terms of its overall price.
However, there is no definite number when it comes to the overall value that is added to your home. In some cases, it could be as high as $30,000 or even higher than that if premium materials were used. Still, it will depend highly on a lot of different factors as you may end up seeing your home’s value increasing by a couple of thousands to the aforementioned $30,000. But the consensus is that wainscoting will help improve your home’s value by more than the total cost you paid for it when it was installed regardless of whether it was a DIY or a professional job.