Panelling seems to be all the rage right now but, like every annoying person, I liked it before it was cool. It adds texture and interest to rooms and is so versatile. It can soften modern spaces while adding elegance to more traditional homes. When the previous owners of our house bought it in the 70s, they sadly got rid of a lot of the character (a noteable exception is my beloved wood floor in my office) and I’ve wanted to do something to add some of it back. I didn’t want to do something massive or that would take ages so I decided on adding some beadboard to the half-height wall in the main bedroom. As I’m doing this in real-time and as a stand alone project, I can talk through the steps in a lot more detail.

There are lots of different ways to do panelling and it’s all pretty straight forward- it’s quite simply sticking wood or MDF (which is a kind of engineered wood) to the wall in a uniform way. I think this is a good intro to DIY if you haven’t done it before because it can be as simple or complicated as you want it to be and you only need a handful of tools and supplies. This article gives a good run down of how to do different kinds of panelling and I’ll be explaining the bead board/tongue and groove panelling that I chose.

While you can get individual pieces of wood to do tongue and groove, I chose to do sheets of MDF because it’s much quicker and relies less on my ability to get the tongue and groove fitting together properly. With this being a half-height wall, there wasn’t enough space for shaker-style panelling to work but I still wanted something traditional. Since this part of the wall sticks out, I got some window board to stick on top so there are no scraggly edges on show. I was hoping that this would only take a day or two but, because none of the walls in this house are square, I had to do a few rounds of filling and sanding and waiting for the filler to dry is what took the longest.

What you need:

• MDF or wood panelling

• Pencil

• Tape measure

• Saw

• No nails/Gorilla glue

• Nail gun (or small nails and hammer)

• Caulk

• Level

• Paint and brush or roller

• Filler

• Sandpaper

The first thing to be done is measuring the space that’s being panelled so you know what you need. I bought sheets of MDF that I cut to size so it was very straightforward but if you’re planning on doing shaker-style or battons, you’ll need to plan the layout more carefully so there’s balance and symmetry. The part of the wall I’ve panelled 342cm x 77cm/11.2ft x 2.5ft so I ordered 7 of these bad boys from Homebase. They were really easy to put together and had clear instructions on the back so I would recommend giving them a try if you’re wanting to dip your toe into DIY.

The wall is a bit shorter than the panels so I lined them up against the wall, slipping the tongues into the grooves and numbering them all so it would be easy to put them on in the right order. Instead of using a level, I just checked that it looked right because so much of the house is wonky that sometimes using a level makes things look crooked- fun! I then drew a line along the back at the level of the wall so I was sure I would cut them all at the right height. For the final panel that also needed to be cut width-wise, I measured at the top, middle, and bottom widths and, not surprisingly, there was a few cms different between them. When fitting panelling, or doing any cosmetic DIY really, it’s best to make sure the most visible part has the least amount of alterations. For example, on corner of the panelling will be almost completely covered by my bedside table to that’s where I chose to use a panel that would be cut width-wise. This was a good idea because I did butcher it a bit and the remedial filler and caulking won’t be noticable.

I used a circular power saw to cut these but a normal hand saw or table saw would also have worked. My brother-in-law has nearly every power tool under the sun and shares them very generously so I went over to his house to use his saw. He’s really handy and practical and was building a deck at the time so I didn’t have the heart to ask him to take on the role of Instagram husband and record or photograph me using power tools but rest assured that I did. If you haven’t used power tools before or are a bit wary of them, there’s nothing to fear: they have safety features and make jobs much quicker and easier. To get comfortable with something like a power saw, try practicing on scrap bits of wood and make sure you wear your safety goggles. You can also rent most power tools so you don’t have to invest in something before ever trying it.

The panels didn’t need to be primed so I laid out a tarp in the dinig room and set out the panels. Initially, I chose Mole’s Breath by Farrow and Ball and was really happy with it until I brought a panel up to see how it looked in the room. The bed and dressing table are grey and the Mole’s Breath was similar enough that it looked like I’d done a bad color match so it just didn’t look quite right. I had some Payne’s Grey (which is actually blue) by Craig & Rose left from when I painted the bookshelf in the kitchen so I gave that a try and it looked much better. One important thing to do if you’re painting something tongue and groove before fitting it is to make sure you don’t paint the tongues or in the grooves- as the paint builds up, it can keep the tongue from fitting into the groove properly. I used some painters tape on the tongues so I didn’t have to worry about being extra careful which worked well. It doesn’t really matter if you paint before or after fitting, I just wanted minimal pots of paint in the carpeted bedroom.

Fitting the panels onto the wall was probably the easiest part- there are two sticky strips on the back of each panel and I used No More Nails, which is a really storng and fast-acting adhesive, to make sure the panels weren’t going anywhere. For extra security, I also used a nail gun to make sure the panels stayed flush against the wall and didn’t slide or bow at all. It could be a little tricky to get the tongue and groove to slide together properly without the adhesives getting in the way but it was still pretty easy overall. Overall, I think it probably only took about 5-10 minutes to fit the panels onto the wall.

To keep everything neat and make the shelf a bit more robst, I used MDF window boards on top. They were a bit too narrow to look neat so I used some strips of wood in the garage to add a bit more depth. This proved to be the most annoying part because the existing shelf wasn’t level depth- or length-wise so the strips of wood I put in weren’t the same height as the window boards and, since I needed two boards, getting them level with each other was a bit of a pain, not least of all because one is a bit warped. I stuck the wooden strips down with No More Nails and used Gripfill for the window boards since it’s thicker so can be used to fill in the gaps caused by the uneven surface.

To get everything completely leveled off, I had to use quite a bit of filler and it took absolutely ages to dry, which made the project take longer than I expected. Eventually everything dried and I was finally able to sand the filler so everything was smooth, I vacuumed up all the dust and caulked all the edges, which also needed to be left to dry. Once everything was finally dry and ready, I wasn’t sure if I should pain the shelf white or the colour of the panelling but Sam suggested painting it in Egyptian Cotton, which is the colour of the walls, so the wobbly nature of the lines wouldn’t be as noticable. It turned out to be the right colour and it’s all tied in nicely.