Chair Rail Facts

It's a testament to Nate Berkus that he's cute enough to get me to care about things that I never would've cared about otherwise. One of these was the history of the chair rail which should be boring but was actually quite fascinating. I always thought a chair rail was just a way to make a room look cool. However, Nate said that it was because wallpaper and fabric used to be so expensive and kind of a sign of wealth. They would install chair rail on the lower part of the walls because this delicate material never could survive heavy furniture scraping against it like when you move a chair back from a dining table. It’s ironic though that at least in the blogging design world now a chair rail seems to be more popular than wallpaper.