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