Wainscot and Wainscoting

vocabularyA contractor friend of mine used to call  “Wayne’s World” and it would always crack me up because he’d recite the mantra, in the appropriate voice of course, “Wayne’s World, Wayne’s World, Party Time, Excellent.” Finding levity in the normal is always a good thing I suppose.

So what is wainscot? Is it a material or an application method? It’s both. We’ve had some interesting discussions in the office regarding this particular verbiage and in the end the “Red Dictionary,” not unlike Google, wins all bets and sends the rest packing. Well, not really, but you have to at least try to bring drama into such a dry topic, right?

According to the Construction Dictionary, 9th Edition © 2001 published by the Greater Phoenix, Arizona Chapter #98 of the National Association of Women in Construction wainscot is defined as follows:

(1) the wooden paneling of the lower part of an interior wall up to dado height in a room. (2) The walls of an elevator cab extending from the platform to the underside of the car top.

Wainscoting:  The materials used in lining the interior of walls; also, the process of applying such materials to walls.

Bonus:  Dado:  

(1) Decorative moulding on lower interior wall. (2) The flat space between the base and crown moulding on a Classical pedestal. (3) A rebate or groove in woodwork.

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