EASY PANELLING

Create your own panelled wall for an on trend up date to any room.

Panelling is actual quite easy to do. It is just very time consuming. Preparation is everything. Ensure you follow the first 4 points as these are very important to ensure you don't end up gluing your wood down just to realise the panels aren't even.

Things you will need:

MDF board 6mm thick

Fine saw

Pencil

Box cutter

Metal ruler

Spirit level

No More Nails

Sealant gun

Red Devil Onetime ready mixed filler

Scraper

Lining paper if walls uneven

Sanding block

Primer

Paint

Method

1. Work out how much wood you need. Measure the height and width of your wall. Decide how big you want your squares to be based on this size. It looks better if one of the strips runs exactly in the middle of the wall. Then go from there. So if you will have 4 panels, divide your wall size by 5 and this will give you the size of your panels. The height of each of my panels is 55cm, the width is 53cm. This is worked out to the middle of each strip of wood. Each strip of wood for my wall is 88mm wide. From here you can work out how many panels of MDF you will need.

2. Once you have the wood, you need to cut the strips. As the wood was thin I was ok with a fine hand saw. B&Q cut some of the strips but their machine could only do so many. I used one of these strips as a guide for marking out the rest of my strips using a box cutter to score the wood as a guide for my saw. I then lightly sanded the edges.

3. Prepare your wall - so this is either filling cracks and/or removing wallpaper. My walls are very rough so I left the lining paper on the wall. If you are doing this with thicker/heavier wood then use tacks in addition to No More Nails to ensure the wood does not pull the paper off. You can also use tacks if your walls are very uneven/ bowed.

4. Mark out your template on the walls using a spirit level to ensure everything is straight. I marked out each centre point of each row/column including the edge strips (see image).

5. Glue your edge strips first (these are your top, bottom and side strips).

6. Do the vertical strips. Keep using the spirit level as you go.

7. Cut your remaining strips to size as you go for your horizontal strips. Use the metal ruler and box cutter to mark the wood before you cut it so you get a straighter cut. Then lightly sand each cut.

8. Once all the strips of wood are up, leave it for 24 hours so it sets properly and won't move.

9. Fill the gaps using wood filler. I used Red Devil Onetime filler as it's the best one I've found.

10. You can paint straight on to Red Devil, but I recommend allowing it to set.

11. Prime the wood and wall if necessary.

12. Paint the panelling - I needed 2 coats. I also painted the skirting the same colour.

You are now done!