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Wainscoting in the basement part 11
Be prepared for plenty of dust. Yesterday and today I spent a total of about 10 hours of cutting, glueing, nailing, installing and making a mess. The work is slowly starting to change the feel of the room. Weird how that works…or maybe its just me. 🙂
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Wainscoting in the basement part 10
Take the time to plan the panel positions. Today I spent 2-1/2 hrs cutting and nailing in some more top and bottom wainscot trim and lining up where the vertical pieces will go. Most of the time was spent up in the workshop cutting out the other three bottom plates of the window boxes. You’ve only seen three windows so far but there is another window in an adjacent room that will receive similar trim work (but no wainscot).
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Wainscoting in the basement part 9
High volume air mover but LOUD! I had said previously that working with MDF is dirty business and its nasty stuff. I rigged up a high velocity fan and opened a window in a nearby room to provide air flow.
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Wainscoting in the basement part 8
Our project is now full stop. Apparently there is no way to purchase more 3/4 x 12 x 96 inch MDF sheets. This is not a good situation to be in. The supplier (Central Home Improvement) calls the MDF I purchased ’11/16′ but it measures a true 3/4 inch thick. There is some confusion as to the material they sell in their warehouse.
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Wainscoting in the basement part 7
Custom cap trim work. Here is a close up picture of the store bought quarter round. As you can see it doesn’t fit. It was fine for the bead board panels that were 3/8 inch thick but this MDF is 3/4 inch thick so I need to make a similar profile molding but make it 3/8 inch wider.
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Wainscoting in the basement part 6
Laundry room trim work Too busy through the week to get at it in the evenings. Spent much of Saturday (6 hrs) working on the wainscoting by finishing up the wood trim inside the panels. Nailed in the store bought chair rail (white) and made my own cap to top off the wainscot (made from pine). The entrance room is now fully done and being prepped for painting (filling nail holes). Its now time to tackle the main living space in the basement. Shown here is the wainscoting we put in the laundry room. I used store bought beadboard and 2 pieces of store bought chair rail and quarter round. So this is what I also want to do for chair rail in the other rooms.
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Wainscoting in the basement part 5
The construction process is complete. Onward we go…I finished off the MDF strips and sanded the joints flush then got a start on the molding detail inside the panels. When it came time to install the trim, the issue of the MDF not all being the same thickness really came to the forefront. When I did the two panels in the corner to the right of the door, I pushed the trim in all the way and it provided a 1/16 inch reveal on the edge of the MDF. However when I started trimming the panels to the left of the door, the trim edged past the MDF to reveal itself about 1/16 inch. So that means the MDF to the left of the door is 1/8 inch thinner that the MDF that was used to the right of the door. So now its to think about what to do.
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Wainscoting in the basement part 4
Starting on the wall wainscot. For 2 hrs this evening I cut out the upper.and lower strips for this room, and installed them. A few trips back and forth to the workshop to rip the strips. The some measuring, and more measuring and cutting. Then finding the studs, marking them and using the 18 gauge brad nailer with 2-1/2 inch nails to secure the 3/4 MDF through the 1/2 inch drywall and into the studs. For the most part it went smoothly.
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Wainscoting in the basement part 3
Building up stock door trim. Today I got busy installing door trim over that storage room door and the garden door. I cut out the pieces and glued and nailed in these two headers. It took a couple trips back and forth to the workshop since the table saw and router table are there, the miter saw in set up in the basement. Time: 1:30 hrs.
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Wainscoting in the basement part 2
Building up the door trim. From my previous comments, you can see that these are some of the unexpected issues that can come up. Now I have to rethink how to nail the built up molding onto the door casing. Instead of straight in nailing I’ll have to angle the nailer since there’s not enough door casing behind the built up trim to shoot straight in. Angling the nailer brings up visions of brad nails going off course and blowing out the side of the door casing. Been there and done that. Not fun. Now to carefully choose the right length nails.
