Picture Rails
Beth here.
Over the break between Christmas and New Year’s, Merideth and I put in the picture rail in both bedrooms. I also took the opportunity to paint the rooms. The picture rails went up in no time at all. And normally, painting is a task that takes one or two days. For me, it took five for each room. (In my defense, there could be almost no taping because the plaster is so wonky on the edges where it meets the old trim, many of the lines have to be creatively applied. In not-so-much my defense, I tend to be overly weird about having perfect lines.)
Just by looking at the walls, we could see that there used to be picture rails there, so it was easy to figure out where to put them. This is the master bedroom. We found that the picture rail doesn’t make the room look bigger or smaller, as previously hoped-for and feared, but it does make the room look righter. We decided not to use the picture rail as it was strictly intended (y’know, to hang pictures), but I do like the architectural feature it adds to both rooms.
This is the guest room. While painting, I considered putting on purposeful gloppy drips on the new picture rail in order to make them match the rest of the room, but just couldn’t make myself do it. I guess everyone will just have to know by the lack of caked-up paint that the picture rails are not the originals.