8 Ways to Incorporate Dado and Picture Rails

Big up or play down? Use to highlight or trick the eye? Check out these ways to exploit dado and picture rails to your advantage

Cathy Rebecca 24 February 2015

London-based freelance journalist

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With a housing boom in cities following the industrial revolution, many of the homes in Britain’s architectural landscape are period properties built in the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian eras. As thousands of people flocked to cities, there was little space to build sprawling homes, and wealth was instead demonstrated through the finer details.

Proportions were much more generous than they tend to be now and ceilings were much higher. Moulding was used to add decoration and interest to rooms – the more elaborate, the better. Picture rails – the strips of moulding that sit just below the ceiling – served two functions: to balance out the height of the ceiling to give a room a better sense of proportion, and to allow items to be hung around the walls without worry of damaging them. Dado rails – the strips of moulding that run along the wall at waist height – were originally created to protect walls from furniture banging against them.

Period homes still have these features, and people are often perplexed at how best to work them into their design scheme. Check out these images for a visual guide to the effects that can be created by painting dado and picture rails in different ways.

Paul Craig Photography

Go white above
In this room, the homeowners decided to paint both the picture rail and the space above it in the same colour as the ceiling. This serves to highlight the architectural feature, and visually brings the ceiling height down.

To see more from any of the designers whose photos are featured in this article, click on the image (then on Learn More if you’re in the app) and follow the links to the professional’s profile.

Rikki Snyder

Opt for contrast
If you have dado or picture rails, why not make the most of these period features? Draw attention to them by painting them in a contrasting colour to the walls.

In this scheme, the white picture rail ties in with the rest of the furniture in the room, and helps to prevent the dark grey from overpowering the space. It’s an unusual look, and can help to create an original feel in a traditional space.

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Brayer Design

Incorporate the rail
This look is similar to painting the picture rail and the space above it white, but here the rail is painted the same colour as the wall beneath. This allows the picture rail to become part of the built-in bookcases for a smart finish.

Making Spaces

Stay dark
A creative way to contemporise a period property without removing or damaging any of its original features is to paint an entire wall, including the picture or dado rail, and skirting board a dark, moody tone. This sort of uniformity of colour is unusual, so lends an edgy and unique feel to a room.

You might also like How to Confidently Choose Colours for Your Home

Transitional Living Room Eoin Lyons Interiors, Ranelagh, Dublin.

Stick with similar hues
It’s common to paint the walls below a picture rail in a colour and above in white. But going for two tones of the same colour (you can buy a smaller pot of paint for the area above the rail) is a great way to allow the feature to stand out without it being too obvious.

Here, a very slightly lighter shade of blue is used above the picture rail, with a darker hue on the rail itself and below to add another dimension to the room.

deVOL Kitchens

Keep it all one shade
Painting a picture rail the same colour as the walls above and below it minimises its visual impact, allowing it to add subtle detail without drawing the eye to it immediately. It creates an elegantly understated atmosphere in this kitchen.

The SpaceMaker Interiors

Work in a ribbon of colour
Painting the area above a picture rail in a darker shade is unusual – many people would only use colour above a picture rail if they were continuing it on from the lower walls. But there’s no reason why this needs be the case. Painting the sliver between the picture rail and ceiling is an effective way to bring in a subtle hint of colour, and it also serves to emphasise the height of the room.

Greg Natale

Create colour blocks
Many rooms in period properties will have either a dado rail or a picture rail. However, where ceilings are particularly high, they can have both. This opens up even more opportunities for colour combinations. In this room, blocks of colour help to separate out and define the space, to prevent the high ceilings from becoming cavernous.

Tell us…
Do you have dado or picture rails in your house? How have you decorated them? Please share your thoughts and photos in the Comments below.

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Arjun Seth

Our new home has both Dado and picture rails. We are a bit confused as to what colours we should go for. Should the space above the picture rail be the same colour as the ceiling? Or Can the shade above the picture rail and below the Dado rail be the same colour. Very confused!

Like 1 November 2017 at 7:05am

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Sophie Wells

We have knocked two reception rooms together, the arch is high (about 300mm from coving), what should I do with picture rail?? You can see where it used to be!

Like 13 March 2019 at 12:22pm

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056114

thinking of going white 9010 below dado and pale to medium yellow above in hall stairs & landing? anyone done/seen similiar - am I mad? should I stick to grey??? have traffic yellow front door

Like 19 October 2020 at 1:47pm