Installing beadboard panels

[Keith Weber]

I'm installing a 1/2 bath under some stairs next to my new-workshop-in-progress. I thought I'd try something different and decorate it with a 48"-high beadboard wainscoting thing. I'm too busy to get creative with real beadboard, so I'm going to use the panels from the Borg-type stores. I haven't looked around to see what they have yet (MDF, Plywood, etc.), but I got to searching online to see how to attach the panels. As with most of the garbage you read on the Internet, you get a lot of conflicting information. So, I thought I'd ask here to get a more experienced opinion rather than the "aimed at the DIY moron" videos and articles I found on the net.

The beadboard will be attached to a plywood wall, so nailing isn't an issue. I was just planning on nailing it securely where it'll be covered up by the chair and baseboard, and then adding a few 18ga nails in the panel to be covered up with a little spackle, sanded and painted so as not to show. But, most of the stuff I saw online mentioned using construction adhesive on the back of the panel, and then nailing it in the corners. They also mentioned allowing a 1/8" gap at the wall joint to allow for expansion (of a glued-down panel??), and then using a corner-round or cove molding in the corner to hide the gap. I'd rather avoid using extra trim at the wall joints if I could help it.

So what's the consensus? Glue? Nail? Both? Expanding Panels?

FWIW, the bathroom will get to as low as 40F before the heat kicks in in the winter, and 100F on a hot day in the summer.

Thanks!

Keith

[Rich Engelhardt]

I use the MDF stuff.
I backprime it with B*I*N (pigmented shellac) and seal all six sides.
I apply it to the wall with Power Grab adhesive and nail it at the top and bottom with 18 ga 1.25" brads.
I space the bottom 1/2 to 3/4" up from the floor - depending on which thickness of scrap plywood I have laying around at the time - and run a bead of silicone/latex caulk along the bottom edge.
I also run a bead of s/latex caulk down the edge of the panel I just applied and slide the next panel into the caulk when I butt the seam.
I use cap molding around the top. I run a bead of s/latex caulk along the top of the panel and bed the cap moulding into it, then nail it off as usual.

Excess s/latex caulk should be "thumbed" into all the seams where it's been applied.
I usually prime the caulked areas using Glidden Gripper - a water clean up primer - while the caulk is still wet.

Once all the beadboard is up and I go back to run the baseboards, I run a bead of s/latex caulk along the back of the baseboard at the bottom, heavy enough to fill in the 1/2 to 3/4" gap I left at the bottom of the beadboard.
I also backprime the baseboard.
I usually don't bother to backprime the cap moulding - but - it probably wouldn't be a bad idea.

Am I a bit over the top w/all the caulk and backpriming?
I don't feel it is. Better safe than sorry.

BTW - in corners I just run a bead of s/latex on the inside corners and use cove moulding to finish it off. I don't care for quarter round.
On outside corners, I use the plastic foam type moulding and stick it on w/Power Grab.

In a couple of extreme cases, where there was a "belly" in the wall, I've had to face nail the MDF. I used a 23 ga pin nailer and drove one inch pins in \ / <- like that. - to hold the beadboard until the Power Grab set up.
Don't try it w/18 ga brads. It's very difficult to fill the holes and keep the glass smooth surface the beadboard has.

If you have to cut the beadboard, take great pains to make sure you can hide the cuts - either with cap/baseboard or in a corner.
The MDF stuff has a nasty habit of chipping out where it's cut.
I always use my Festool track saw since it's great for making chip/tear out free cuts. Even w/it though, I get some chipping out sometimes in the little valleys where the beads are.

Buying full 4x8 sheets and cutting them down is usuallly a lot cheaper than buying the pre cut pieces.
Again though, I have a track saw to make the job of cutting them easy.

Be very, very, very selective about the edges of the material you buy & use an extreme amount of caution during transport and handling. It's nearly impossible to repair or even hide a ding on an edge.
If you do ding an edge, you'll have to either toss the piece - or - buy some of the plastic/foam moulding the borg sells for covering seams. It's a semi round flat sort of thing. I can't really describe it.
You're sort of hosed there though since once you do one seam, you have to do all the seams.<-- which may not be a bad thing.
Depending on the layout, those seam hider things add to the look.
The real downside there is that you have to rip the pieces in order to get evenly spaced sections.
It's a snap if you have a track saw. Probabaly some hours of misery if you don't(LOL! No - I'm not plugging for a track saw! ;) - this is just one of those many off beat things that make me glad I paid an obscene amount of money for one.)

Painting/finishing the MDF.
I use a satin or eggshell waterborne. I roll it on w/a short nap (1/4" or so) roller. I roll out ~ 6 feet or so and let it set up for ~ 10 min. While it still "tacky", I go back and dress it with the roller.
By dressing it, I mean I take the roller and run it from the top down to the bottom and overlap each pass by as little as possible.
YMMV here...depending on what type of appearance you want.
The dressing adds just a very slight stipple. That very slight stipple helps the seams blend in better. (IMHO)

HTH.

[Troy Turner]

Kieth -

When we put it in our utility room, we didn't search hard enough for the smooth MDF and bought the plywood kinda stuff. PITA to clean, even once it was sanded, primed, and painted. We glued and nailed the edes so the trim would cover the nail holes. For our bedroom, we didn't buy the sheets, we bought the t/g boards and put it up ourselves. We did put adhesive on the back and nailed at the top and bottom. I think the adhesive is good so you can mash the middle in and hopefully not have to nail it up and fill the nail hole later. For the bar, we did use the MDF. And again, we glued and nailed up.

[Jeff Duncan]

Looks like you already got some good tips. I'll agree that glue on the back of the panel is a good way to do a quality installation. With nails only you can get a hollow feel to the panel and sometimes even have loose spots develop over time. With a little construction adhesive here and there it keeps the panel nice and tight.

As far as expansion....yup things can expand/contract regardless of being glued down. This is one of the reasons good construction adhesive stays flexible, b/c it can allow for some slight movement without failing, unlike the brittle stuff which cannot.

Lastly I prefer the mdf panels for look. I've used the ply panels on a project in the past and it's really, really hard to get it to smooth out and stay that way. The grain always wants to come back out. The mdf can be primed painted and looks great. Just remember as mentioned, don't run it to the floor, keep it up a good amount so it cannot stay wet and let the base cover the gap!

good luck,
JeffD

[Peter Aeschliman]

I wouldn't expect MDF panels to expand and contract all that much, as long as you seal it on all 6 sides as Rich described. So I wouldn't worry about adhesive failing or leaving expansion gaps in the corners or between panels.

MDF isn't my favorite material in wet areas though. So I'll also second Rich's point about leaving a gap at the floor and caulking that. If you spill water or your toilet overflows, it would ruin your panels. It's fine if it's well-sealed and water doesn't touch it.

As for nailing and gluing, I'd recommend doing top trim and a baseboard, nailing the panels where the trim covers, and gluing the centers of the panels. For the baseboards, I would use real wood, again because if you use MDF, it will be ruined if your toilet overflows.

In my home, our bathroom has MDF baseboard trim. Even though the toilet as never overflowed, just mopping the floor caused enough moisture to wick up into the baseboard that the baseboards are fairly swollen at the bottom. So I really don't like MDF baseboards for bathrooms.

[Paul Wunder]

I used a beadboard product at Home Depot made by Veranda. It is made of plastic (it looks as good as any panel) and comes in tongue and groove strips like laminated flooring. It is solid white, therefore, if you like white, there is no finishing to be done. The product seems to be very dimensionally stable. I have it in our master bath for six months now. The mfg recommends gluing, but I simply nailed it on the top and bottom. I nailed through the cap and into the floorplate. It costs a bit more than the panels but it is much easier to work with and saves a light of time. The product is suitable for indoor/outdoor use and caps and baseboard are available. I used a wooden cap that I made for our installation.

Veranda is Home Depot captive brand that also makes decking, lattice and an AZAK look-alike. I have no connection to either HD or Veranda

[Keith Weber]

Thanks for the advice guys! Especially Rich... Wow! What a detailed response! I guess I was looking at the construction adhesive more as a hindrance to any future changes rather than the positives to panel adhesion. The truth is, I'll probably never change it, but if I do, I guess I can deal with that problem later.

It sounds like my table saw might come in handy for the project. It's one of those heavy tools left behind at my old shop in my basement. I haven't moved it yet because I knew it would take a lot of time to disassemble everything (Exaktor slider, extension table, etc.), not to mention getting the heavy cabinet upstairs. I've been getting by with my new shop construction by using a circular saw for ripping. I think it's time to finally get it, the bandsaw, and my heavy router table out the basement and into my new shop (40 miles away). This is my motivation! I'm going to start taking things apart after I send this reply (before I change my mind and go into procrastination mode again.) It'll be so nice having all my tools in one location again!

Keith

[Keith Weber]

Paul,

Do you know if that plastic stuff can be painted? Not that it needs to be, but I just thought that if you could paint it with the same paint as the base and chair rail (semi-gloss, ultra white), then it would lose the plastic look of having a smoother finish/glossier sheen than the adjacent woodwork. Off to the basement!

Keith

[Paul Wunder]

Yes, the panels can be painted. I used a Pittsburgh Latex semi gloss because my wife is the boss and she wanted "her shade of white". I did prime the panel once it was up, but honestly did not think it was necessary. We are very happy how it turned out. Also, the tongue and groove strips, in my opinion lay down better than a single panel would.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I used a beadboard product at Home Depot made by Veranda. It is made of plastic (it looks as good as any panel) and comes in tongue and groove strips like laminated flooring. It is solid white, therefore, if you like white, there is no finishing to be done.
That's good stuff. I looked into using it on the last rehab.

It comes packaged in a 3 pack. Each piece is 8' long, 7.25 wide and 1/4" thick. It runs ~ $25 for the package.
It takes roughly two packages to equal the sq footage of the 4x8 sheets of 1/8" thick MDF, which runs about $12 at my local Lowes.
I needed 6 full sheets of 4x8 for the whole rehab (kitchen and bath) I just finished,
I ran into some issues with both height and thickness that made it too expensive to use the Veranda.
Plus, I needed to paint it.

The Veranda is vinyl and it's not recommended to paint it. IMHO - they do that just as a CYA move.
A good primer (such as Glidden Gripper) works fine on vinyl. A good 100% acrylic latex is also flexible enough to work as a top coat.

If I were putting it in my house and using it as wainscoat, I'd have no problem priming and painting it.
However - I wasn't putting it in my house so I backed off.

I also had some old electrical boxes that would have had to come out and be replaced w/old work boxes due to the 1/4" thickness of the Veranda.
I already had B*I*N onsite for other things that needed sealed, so, I didn't have to spend the money on that for the backpriming.
If you have to buy B*I*N to prime the MDF & pay a few bucks for a decent roller and brush, that adds up pretty quick.
B*I*N is about $45 a gallon and a decent brush runs about $7 or $8 and a decent roller about $5 or $6.
You can always clean the tools - but - w/alcohol as expensive as it is, you pretty much end up spending as much to clean the tools as you would to just toss them.
Even cleaning up with ammonia, you still need to flush the pigmented shellac out first with alcohol.

For a small job & for something like wainscoat the Veranda would be a good choice.
Like Paul points out - it's way easier to process it than it is to process the MDF.

It is a vinyl product though and it will move with the temperature.
I don't believe I'd use adhesive on the back - w/a 1/4" thickness it's going to be pretty ridgid to begin with anyhow.
If I were to use adhesive, it would probably be just a dab her and a dab there on every other section - ala the wood 3.5" T&G wainscoat sections that are sold. Those are installed loose, with every thiird one being nailed.

[QUOTE][The beadboard will be attached to a plywood wall, so nailing isn't an issue/QUOTE]
I missed that first time around.
Any particular reason you're using plywood instead of drywall?
Plywood in a basement, if there's any dampness or humidity get's real skunky. Even CDX.
The new paperless mold resistant drywall is the way I'd recommend you go.
The new light weight USG mud makes for a whole lot easier joint taping also.
While that stuff sand like a charm, you really don't have to sand it at all. You just wipe it down with a damp sponge.
Marvelous product..

[Keith Weber]

Any particular reason you're using plywood instead of drywall?

Uuuhhh... good question. My new woodshop is actually a shop within another shop (steel building). On the outside of the woodshop, I wanted the ability to hang stuff and resist dings -- so plywood seemed to be the material of choice. My experience with drywall in a non-heated, work environment is that it falls apart and looks like crap. The plywood is some nice AC-grade plywood that the Orange BORG had on special at the time. I hung it, let it settle for 6 months, worked drywall mud into the seams (with no tape) and nail holes, sanded, primed and painted with a white semigloss paint. It looks really sharp and has held up great for 6 months now. I'm expecting that I'll most likely get the odd hairline cracking at the seams over time, but that's fine -- It's not my living room.

Anyway, on to the bathroom below the stairs leading to the area above my woodshop... The side wall was corrugated steel panels screwed to steel square tubing in the adjacent building. Between the tubing and the steel panels is insulation, so the whole wall has a spongy feel to it. I needed to add rigidity and a finishable surface to this wall under the stairs to become the one wall of the bathroom. I couldn't spare the space for a traditional wall, so my solution was to lay vertical 2x4s flat against the recessed areas of the corrugated steel and screw them to the steel tubing through the wall. The new studs provided a solid base for a wall, but because of the shape of the corrugated steel, the studs didn't sit in a perfect plane, so I screwed 3/4" plywood to the studs as if I was putting down drywall. It worked really well. I kept all the plywood an in inch off the concrete floor. I initially considered drywall, but I was worried about it not holding up in an unheated (or marginally heated -- I'll set the main building thermostat to 40F for the winter) shop with Midwestern humidity in the summers. I also considered green drywall, but was led to believe that it wasn't a whole lot better. Also, that side wall really needed the strength of the plywood so the screws could pull everything into flat and sturdy. So out of frustration of what to do, I just made the decision to use the nice plywood that I had on hand instead.

After you asked why I did that, I'm starting to second guess that decision, though. Being able to tape drywall would make the wall seams nicer in the bathroom. Since I've only put the plywood so far on the side wall with the sheet steel, what I could do is just put some paperless drywall over the ply and then use the paperless drywall alone on the other walls. I would only lose 1/4" in the bathroom width vs. putting 3/4" ply on the opposite wall. That's actually the first time I've heard of paperless drywall. I had to look it up. The one negative that I can see is that after it is painted, you could probably see the difference in texture between the taped seams and screw fills and the rougher fiberglass facing of the drywall. It's a pretty small bathroom. I guess I could always skim coat the rest of each panel.

Keith