MAKING MDF PANELS - Part IV

While we were sleeping, the DIY fairy godmother visited our house sprinkling magical green stardust over the walls. 

 

Painted as if by magic

With a flick of her wand, a fabulous parrot paper feature wall morphed into being with not a decapitated bird in sight. 

 

Wow!  Parrots

Wow!  I said waking up the next morning to discover this miracle, half expecting to be kissed by a handsome prince with a mug of tea in hand and a bulging pocket of IKEA pencils.  Wow! 

Feature wall all ready for panel assembly

Pfffftt!!  It’s back to reality and time to finally assemble our MDF panelling.  

Firstly, let’s check the checklist:  everything primed (tick), painted (tick), glue gun cocked (tick), spirit level, tape measure and IKEA pencil to hand (tick, tick and tick) then looks like we’re ready to rock. 

Clear the decks and make sure your work space is free of anything that might mark the front of the panels.  Use a fresh dust sheet and give yourself plenty of space.  Open the windows too as some of these adhesives are pretty smelly. 

In my world, panel assembly begins bottom up.  Baseboards first then the individual bars in order from bottom to top.  I never glue anything in place until I’ve dry assembled the panels on the floor or against the wall to make sure everything lines up and will neatly fit into position. 

 

Preparing the baseboards for assembly

Using Grip All adhesive or a similar super strength fast drying adhesive, run a bead of glue all the way round the edge and through the middle of each individual baseboard panel.  Stick each panel onto your wall or in our case, onto our pre-built stud wall box.  To ensure the panels were well secured to the plasterboard, I also hammered in small panel pins in the corners and along the join lines.

 

Apply a good quantity of glue to your pieces

Grip All - let's hope it does

Once you have a nice flat baseboard area, you can begin to add all the horizontal and vertical MDF bars.  Begin with the bottom horizontal MDF bar.  Glue into position, using the spirit level to check that it is level and straight. Press firmly into place and hold for the time it takes for the adhesive to set.  Wear gloves to prevent sweaty finger marks.

 

Add the bottom horizontal bar first

With the bottom bar in place, then glue into position the first vertical bar using a spirit level to ensure the bar doesn’t lean to one side.  I started from the outer bar then worked my way across to the wall. 

 

Add the first vertical bar - work in from the edge

Check your gap measurements to your design diagram (see previous posts) as you add each vertical bar to ensure these are equal. 

 

Keep adding vertical bars adjusting as you go

When you have added all your vertical bars, glue the top horizontal bar into position to complete your wall panel section.  Everything should look evenly distributed across your wall space just like your design diagram.

 

Everything should look evenly distributed

You can use decorators caulk to fill in any large gaps where the MDF bars join together then touch up using a fine paint brush.  These should be minimal if you got your MDF pieces professionally cut to your project design sizes.

Using this type of wall panel design flat against the wall should require no additional dado rail or beading on top of the last horizontal bar but you can always add one if you wish.

I’ll be adding a flat piece to close the top of the stud wall box and create a decorative shelf to display all my Art Deco bits and pieces.

The finished feature wall

 

MAKING MDF PANELS - Part III

This is the boring part of panel making, the prepping.  You’ve got the design, you’ve bought the timber and you’re just dying to stick it all on the wall but before you do this, there’s one final thing that needs doing – the priming and painting.

 

MDF panel pieces ready to prime

Ideally, I prefer to do this before I stick all the pieces on the wall as I find it much easier to apply MDF primer and paint with a roller on a flat surface than on a vertical one.  Less chance for drips or run marks and easier to get to the side edges. 

 

Prime & paint before assembly

To give your MDF pieces a nice sealed finish, apply one coat of primer to both front and back of each piece then 2 coats of paint.  I have used Dulux wood primer as I had some left over from another project followed by 2 coats of Farrow & Ball Pigeon colour paint. 

 

F&B paint bargain

Apply 2 coats with roller for smooth finish

Leave everything to dry on a nice flat surface to avoid the risk of warping.  Am I being paranoid?  It’s probably just my OCD like nature but as we’re sticking it all together then you want to avoid anything being out of sync or warped.

 

Leave to dry for a day or two

The beauty of doing it this way is that whilst the panel pieces are drying out, you can carry on painting the walls or go off for a foot massage.

Panel pieces all painted and ready to assemble

MAKING MDF PANELS - Part II

Okay so having followed my epic tutorial on how to prepare a sketch with measurements for an MDF wall panelled section, there’s just a few more pearls of wisdom to share about the panel sections before you go off to your local timber merchants to buy your specially cut MDF panel pieces. 

Can't she post something about dandelions?

Firstly, all of the horizontal and vertical bars that make up your overall panel design need to sit on a backboard of some kind.  Even with perfectly plastered walls I feel that to give the panelling some relief and enhance the overall wood-like texture of the finished item, then you need to have an MDF baseboard.  I’ve used 6 mm thick MDF sheets for my base.

MDF sheets come in lots of different sizes but when you get to B&Q and depending on the size of the area you are covering, you may not be able to get a sheet of MDF that covers the whole space in one piece. 

The biggest sheet size (2.44 m x 1.22 m) may not be big enough or available in store for your project and in such cases, you will need to think about how best to cover your wall space so that no MDF joins are showing. 

Our nearest B&Q in Bognor Regis had a shortage of large 6 mm MDF sheets so to get round this issue, I divided my wall space into smaller sections with the MDF joins falling in the centre of my vertical bars.  I’ve marked these out in green in the diagram.

 

Measuring up for smaller backboards

I was then able to buy 6 of their 1.22 m x 0.61m x 6mm MDF sheets and get them cut down to the required sizes.  This works out a little more expensive than perhaps buying the larger sized sheet but it can be a way of getting round the issue of MDF sheet shortages or larger wall spaces to panel. 

For the horizontal and vertical bars, I used 12 mm thick MDF.  From a large MDF sheet (2.44m x 1.22m), I was able to get 2 horizontal bars and 7 verticals bars cut to size with plenty left over.  For greater depth or if you want to use a quadrant bead inside your panels to give them a nice finish, you can always use 18 mm thick MDF.

 

Panel bars in 12mm thick MDF

Finally, your panelled section may need something to finish it off such as a dado rail, decorative bead or in our case, a shelf.  This is not just for an aesthetically pleasing look but also to hide any visible MDF joins when you look down along the top edge.  

That shelf will be perfect for cat naps

Victorian Emporium or even Ebay are good places to look for longer lengths of rebated dado rail or decorative beading that can then be cut to size to give the perfect finishing touch to your panels. 

Now armed with your measurements and brain full of all of this amazing stuff you’ve read here, off you pop to the timber merchants with your panelling shopping list.

MAKING MDF PANELS - Part I

With all the billions and zillions of blogs or websites on the internet, you’d think it would be easy to stumble across a blueprint diagram to help you make wood panelling but nope, it’s pretty much the one thing you can’t find. 

I’m sharing my ‘blueprint’ complete with measurements for anyone else who’s struggling to get to grips with the intricacies of how to make a wood panel feature wall like ours. 

Before you go skipping off to the timber merchants, grab yourself a large sheet of paper and a tape measure and sketch out the area you want to panel.  It’s critical to avoid wasting time, money and timber to properly measure and work out exactly how large your MDF panel sections will be.  When you arrive at the timber merchants or B&Q, you can just hand over a shopping list of sized timber pieces that they can then cut exactly to the size you need.

Here’s how I worked out my panel design.  To make it even easier, draw it straight onto the wall as it’s going to get covered over anyway.

Work out the height of your overall panelled section and draw a pencil line across the length of the wall or area to be covered.  Our panel section is quite high as it will sit behind the bed and I want it higher than the headboard.

Spot check height with tape measure and spirit level as you go to avoid sloping panels.

 

Draw panel height line

Decide how wide you want your horizontal bars to be.  I’ve used 14 cm but this dimension can be as big or small as you wish.  Next draw a line across the wall approx 14 cm down from the first line to show the position of the top horizontal bar.

 

Draw top & bottom horizontal bars

Repeat this process, drawing a line across the wall approx 14 cm up from the floor to mark the position of the bottom horizontal bar.  Some panel designs use a wider bottom bar to the top.  If you have tall skirting then you may want to keep your bottom bar at the same height as this so that you retain a level eyeline.

Decide how wide you want your vertical bars to be.  I’ve used 10 cm but this dimension can be more or less but keep it in proportion to the overall design. 

Draw a vertical line that is 10 cm in from the edge of your wall or side of the area to be panelled.  Repeat at the other side.  You should now have a rectangle drawn on your wall that looks something like this.

 

Draw side vertical bars at either end of wall space

Draw a dotted line to mark the centre of the overall length of your rectangle/wall area.  I used this reference point to work out the positioning of the other vertical bars. 

 

Mark the central point of your wall space

Draw a vertical line approx. 5 cm on either side of the central dotted line.  Your rectangle should now look divided into two sections like this:

 

Draw in your centre vertical bar

Wall space divided into 2 large rectangular spaces

Your 2 rectangular areas should now give you a clear picture of the space left to be divided into smaller vertical sections.  Decide how many individual sections you’d like in your rectangles.  I have gone for 3 on each side.  Now this is where it gets technical. 

Measure the dimension between your end vertical bar and your central vertical bar.  

Measure the space in your rectangular area

To divide this space into 3 compartments, you will need a further 2 vertical bars so subtract 20 cm (the width of each bar x number of bars) from the overall measurement.  Then divide the remainder by 3.  Adjust this formula according to the number of vertical bars and total compartments you wish to make. 

For example: 

Dimension between end vertical & central vertical bar = 97.5 cm

Subtract width of 2 x vertical bars (2 x 10cm) from above = 77.5 cm

Divide the 77.5 cm by number of ‘compartments’ (3) = 25.8 cm

 

Each compartment section will measure 25.8 cm between the vertical bars.  Of course, not all spaces can be divided precisely into a nice equal number so you will need to adjust your vertical bars until these are evenly spaced out. 

Measure 25.8 cm in from the first vertical bar and draw a line down. 

 

Marking up start point of next vertical bar

Measure a 10 cm width from this line and draw a line down to mark out the position of your next vertical bar. 

 

Next vertical bar marked up

Repeat the process until you have marked all the vertical bars in your rectangle.  Check your measurements as you go to ensure that the ‘compartments’ are evenly spaced out across the overall gap.

 

All vertical bars even spaced out

Continue this process until you have completely marked out all of the panel compartments across your wall space.

 

Your panel design with measurements 

By now you should have a complete sketch on paper and on the wall space of your wood panel design.  Doing it this way should enable you to more accurately measure up your individual pieces of MDF ready to get them cut plus you will have a handy visual guide for when you come to assemble the cut pieces.

This method is by no means fool proof but by far, I've found it the easiest way to design panelled sections and get accurately cut pieces of MDF.  I hope you'll find it useful too.

Phew!  What an epic post.  More about panels next time but now I’m off for a cuppa.

CONFRONTATIONAL CARPENTRY

Don’t mention the ‘W’ word.  Yes, that’s W for wood panelling or woodwork.  The other half’s still seething after this weekend’s session of confrontational carpentry, the latest form of domestic abuse.

Confrontational carpentry is where I frantically waft a scrappy bit of paper (my technical project drawing) under the other half’s nose then rant and rave as he scratches his head trying to reconcile his woeful lack of appropriate carpentry skills, wood screws or power tools to the task in hand. 

 

Can you make this?

Women are from Venus and men are from Mars, a planet where carpentry has been surpassed by superior alien technology rendering obsolete all things made of wood.

But meanwhile, back on Earth, wood panel features are very much the in thing as home owners embrace the wonders of wood and designers go crazy cladding every conceivable surface in tongue and groove.  No wonder the price of timber has gone through the roof! 

I’m creating a feature wall in our bedroom that will incorporate a tall wood panel infill topped with a shelf.  This ‘infill’ will level off the dog legged wall and enable the bed plus bedside cabinets to be arranged in a straight line which I feel will be more pleasing to the eye.

Levelling off the dog legged wall

On a nice straight wall, panel pieces could be stuck directly to the wall but in our case, a stud wall frame has to be constructed first.

 

Support battens for our stud wall frame

To say we have a difference in opinion on how this stud wall frame gets constructed is like saying that the moon landing was faked all along, controversial and unlikely to be proved either way.  So long as the framework is robust and able to sustain the MDF pieces then does it really matter how it’s done?

Second frame in front to create a 'box'

After a couple of days and a good tongue lashing, the stud wall infill has been built and is ready to panel over. 

Plasterboard screwed onto the wooden frame

CASH FOR FAVOURS

Psst!  Are there any rich Tories out there who might like to ‘loan’ me a few thousand quid in return for some flavours?  I can offer you some tasty pistachio from Lidl’s, a dozen boxes of Magnum lollies or a tub of delicious Kelly’s Clotted Cream ice cream.  Any takers?  Oh sorry, are you saying it’s ‘cash for favours’ not flavours?   And here’s me thinking I could subsidise my household DIY projects in exchange for a bit of raspberry ripple.  Silly moo!  Perhaps Boris should have traded some gelato in return for soft furnishings and a decent paint job.

 

Kelly's - it's so scrummy!

There may be a light at the end of the lockdown tunnel but there’s no end in sight to my refurbishment master plan, the list of things still to do never seems to get smaller.

 

The master plan

Another epic paint fest has begun.  Two mist coats, one white top coat then two coats of the final colour on top for every wall.  It’s like the Great British Bake Off with the end result being a Farrow & Ball layer cake.  No prizes for guessing what I’m going to be up to this bank holiday!

 

The Great British Paint off

Prepping the room

First mist coat goes on the walls

So, what’s in store for this room?  Looking into my DIY crystal ball, I see a tropical oasis of tranquil misty green with a parrot and panelling feature wall behind the bed and some long swishy curtains to dress the window. 

Well, that’s what I have in my head but what I’ll end up with is anyone’s guess so you’ll just have to keep visiting this blog to see how it all turns out.