How To Panel A Wall

Panelling walls is a really easy and very cost-effective way to transform a bedroom, living room or bathroom. In fact, one can transform any room in their home with MDF Wall Panelling, but it takes a bit of measuring, calculating and planning.

Here’s my beginner’s guide to help you get started.

Before you do anything, you’ll need to decide.

What thickness of MDF you’re going to use for your wall panels? MDF comes in varying depths. 6, 9, 12, 18 & 25mm.

EQUIPMENT

Equipment you are going to need for this stage.

Tape measure Pieces of paper Pencil Large Spirit level

HOW TO MEASURE FOR WALL PANELLING

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO CALCULATING AND MEASURING OUT FOR WALL PANELLING.

Step 1

Start by measuring the width of the wall – measure it 3 times to make absolutely sure you’ve got it right!

Step 2

Next, work out roughly the distance you’d like between each vertical wall panel which will determine how many panels you are going to need. Example 8 panels.

Step 3

Times the number of wall panels you’d like by the width of a wall panel (example 8 x 10cm = 80 cm)

Step 4

Take the width of the wall and subtract the figure in step 3. This will leave you with the total sum you have to play with for the gaps between the wall panels. My working would be 400cm – 80cm = 320 cm

Step 5

Divide that figure (320cm in my case) by the number of gaps you’ll be left with. So I wanted 8 panels which gives 7 gaps between the panels. So I will divide the figure of 320cm by 7 = 45.7 cm.

Step 6

Now, you’ll need to work out the height you’d like the panels to be. Taking into consideration other items in the room such as windowsills, bed heads, etc. Best one can go with 143cm.

Step 7

So next, you need to work out how many horizontal wall panels you are going to need to sit across the top of your vertical wall panels. Take your chosen height of wall panels (this will help keep the cuts to a minimum) and then work out how many you can fit across the width of your room. Here are my workings as an example.

MDF Board and Batten Wall Panelling Calculator example

Width of room = 400cm Height of wall panels = 143cm 400cm divided by 143cm = 2.79 times! So we needed 2 wall panels at 143cm = 286cm leaving 1 wall panel at 114 cm (400cm – 286cm)

So our final workings for the cutting of the MDF were.

10 x 143cm x 10cm (8 vertical wall panels and 2 horizontal wall panels) 1 x 114 cm x 10cm

It’s a lot of working out but you’ve really got to get it right!