How far up the wall should a dado rail be?

astonsmummy

Hi
Am trying to decorate!:o
I have a dado rail up which the previous tennants put up, only thing is it's too far up the wall, half way, it doesnt look right, is there a height it should be? i'm sure i've heard there is.

Cypher

Just found this which doesn't really give a figure.

http://www.victorian-society.org.uk/adv11.html

I didn't read anything at the time of putting mine up about 7 years ago, I just did it by eye at the point I thought they looked right.

I've just checked mine and they are 40" high, and after reading that victorian-society article I just measured my dining room chair backs and three peice suite backs and they are all 36" high.

If I had done mine at 36" then in the living room they would have been hidden behind the sofa etc, so going up to 40" at least means they can be seen all around the room.

{edit}
I forgot to say proportionally to the ceiling height mine are approx 2/5ths of the way up the wall 40" off Floor 65" down from ceiling.

nelly_2

a third of the way up generally

misgrace

Cypher and nelly is correct, its roughly between 34"-40" from from floor, depending how high your walls are, they were originally put in place cause of the backs of the chairs would rest against the rail in the good old days.:D

tanith

I found when we did ours that it absolutely looked rediculous when we put it where we thought it should be because it was higher than the window sills... we found it looked so much better when we put it at sill height........ maybe because we had windows at both ends of the room.....

astonsmummy

I havent got windowsills, the wall is 93" high from ceiling to floor (including skirting) so if i do it @ a third, it will be 31" which looks silly, so i thought to use the lightswitches as a guide (they are very low in my house)
If i lined it up next to the lightswitch so the top of the switch and the top of the rail are matching its 40", if i put it up so the bottom of the rail is resting on the top of the switch it's 42.5"
what would look better, beside or on top?

nomaduk

WELL me being a joiner i always set the dado rail at 35 inch to the bottom edge of the rail .

astonsmummy

well i have decided to leave it where it is until i can afford to do the whole room properly coz i'll need the walls to b stripped then re wallpapered, grr!