Pine tongue and groove paneling question

[Ron Citerone]

I want to put 1 X 8 pine tongue and groove paneling in my bay cottage enclosed porch horizontally.

I have the place gutted but left the ceiling tile up as it is in great shape.

The front ceiling on the front wall (16' wall) is out of level by 3/16 over 4'.

Not sure weather to run the horizontal pieces level or parallel to the ceiling.

Either way will leave something looking slanted when I put the crown molding up top or the base at the bottom.

What to do? I am more of a furniture maker and not so much an interior carpenter.

Thanks, ron

[Bill Dufour]

Is the ceiling and floor a straight line or does it go up and down. If it is straight line you may want to shim the tongue at one end. that is only 3/4" out of parallel in 16'. So maybe shim it 1/8 inch further apart on one end between each board. Space it so any joints are far away from the top and bottom so they parallel is hard to judge. Similar to laying out tile. Of course you may want to adjust spacing to reduce waste under or above windows if there are a lot of windows.
Bill D.

[Robert Engel]

You can addressed this situation with a trim board on the wall cut with a taper 1/2 the amount, ie. 3/8 over 16'. This will bring it almost parallel to the groove below it, which is where the eye will want to go anyway. If you start at the top you will ensure the first TG groove is furthest from the ceiling, which is best.

Once you get it up there and painted it will hardly be noticeable.

To anyone but you, of course LOL.

[Jerry Bruette]

I put 8" T&G pine in three bedrooms at my new cabin. I think it's more important to get the boards aligned in the corners. I know we don't look up at the corner of the wall and ceiling much and the corner of the floor and wall is broken up by furniture and such.

3/16 over 4 feet would be 3/4 on one end of the wall from the floor to the ceiling. If I'm doing my math right you'll have 12-13 boards from floor to ceiling and 1/16 on each board should make up the 3/4 that you're out of level.

I found out the hard way in the first bedroom that you shouldn't start tight to the floor with your installation. Start 1/4 inch or so off the floor that way if the floor is out of level with the adjoining walls you can line the boards up in the corners.

[Neil Gaskin]

You should run them level and taper the piece at the ceiling. If you run them parallel to the non-level ceiling it will look off and likely be picked up by eye more than one tapered board up at the ceiling.

[Jim Becker]

You should run them level and taper the piece at the ceiling. If you run them parallel to the non-level ceiling it will look off and likely be picked up by eye more than one tapered board up at the ceiling.

I agree. This is particularly important if more than one wall will be getting the treatment, too...stuff has to line up and "level" is the way to go, despite having to finesse the top and bottom boards.

[Rich Aldrich]

I had a similar issue with a remodel recently. I ran the pine tongue and groove level. However, I did not trim with crown molding. I used a piece of trim that was like door stop and was able to bend it to follow the ceiling. Since it was the same color as the pine, it isn't noticeable. With crown molding, that is going to be a bit of a challenge.

[Bradley Gray]

One more vote for level. If you have windows/doors to fit around, you will want those openings plumb and level and the paneling should align with the casing headers.

Level is always best.

[Peter Kelly]

Why not go with vertical orientation? Any issues with floor / ceiling level-ness would be far less noticeable.

[Ron Citerone]

Thanks everyone, all comments appreciated.

Pete, with the window and door configuration we decided on horizontal after much thought. BTW, wife wants horizontal.....................