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.