Back to the Land Mama: Insert Tongue Into Groove (Part One)

It's bead board time!!!

If you thought this post was about anything other than bead board, you should be ashamed of yourself. Just kidding. Well, at least it got you to read this far, right? :)

The title is just one of many lame jokes you will probably encounter as you read Part 1 of how to install bead board that doesn't look like crap. It turns out it is a relatively easy project (relative to what, I am not sure) that gives you a pretty big visual bang for the buck. So here goes. . .

If you remember my previous posts about my ideas for redoing the kitchen, we originally were going to have a cabinetmaker make new shaker doors and drawer fronts and paint everything white and whatnot. Well, we are still going to paint everything white, but for budget's sake, we are going to stick with our current cabinet doors and paint them and see what happens. If we like it, it will save in the neighborhood of like $1200, so it definitely is worth a try!

"So where does the bead board come in?" you say. We were planning on doing it regardless of the cabinets because it is a good way to cover up the old ugly laminate and/or veneer panels. Yes, we could just paint it white, but that would be too easy. Plus, I like me some fancy.

I thought perhaps it would be a good idea to install all this stuff first and then paint everything all at once. So that's what I am doing.

Before I begin, I want you to know that my way is not probably the official way to install bead board. In fact, I know it's not. There are a great many tutorials on the world wide web that can help you become the Martha Stewart of bead board. I, on the other hand, am kind of lazy when it comes to projects - my husband suggests I should "embrace the journey". I am more of an "embrace the destination"kind of gal, aka I just want it done already so I can move on with my life. So now that you are familiar with my DIY philosophy, let's commence. . .

When I paint the cabinets, I am going to be using the Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations, which supposedly does not require sanding or priming and gives a professional finish without the mess or harsh fumes. I will believe it when I see it, but I thought it was worth a try, especially if it works!

Even though it states that you don't need to prime first, I swear I remember reading somewhere on the internet blogosphere that if you are using raw wood it is a good idea to prime it first. (I didn't exactly go back to verify this fact - hey, when has my memory ever failed me. . .) Since I decided to use the raw pine bead board planks (for ease of use - the planks were small enough that I could cut them with a handsaw and not have to spend money or lose fingers on a table saw) I figured it couldn't hurt to prime.

I decided to use the Zinsser B-I-N Primer because it is supposedly very good at blocking stains and knots. And the planks I bought happened to be particularly knotty, so I'm glad I did. And I have to say, I really liked using a foam brush for this - not only are they dirt cheap, but they don't leave crazy brushstrokes.

After one coat of primer, you could still see some of the knots . . .

So I followed up with a second coat and that seemed to do the trick -

I let them dry about an hour and they were ready to go! Now for the installation - here is a picture of the main area before (the "wood" doesn't look that good in real life, so don't feel bad that I covered it up - trust me, I don't.)

The instructions for the bead board say to make sure to leave a gap of 1/8" for expansion/contraction of the wood. I had no problem with that, because the plank was like a few inches too short to cover the whole thing from top to bottom. But I will be adding molding at the top and a fancy baseboard at the bottom so no worries.

I took the first plank, squirted some Liquid Nails on the back, and just kind of stuck it up there.

Should I have used a level to make sure it was straight? Yes, probably - but it was all the way out it the garage and I didn't feel like going out there to get it (remember, I'm the "just get it done" kind of girl), so I just eyeballed it. So I just added a plank at a time, gluing the back, inserting tongue into groove, and so on.

As it turned out, however, Liquid Nails worked more like Liquid Molasses and the boards slowly oozed down the wall (which, duh, should not have surprised me since there was nothing underneath the boards to support them), so I added a nail towards the top of just about every other board, and that seemed to work. You can see it is certainly not perfect, but my friends, that is the beauty of adding molding on the top and bottom that will (I hope) cover all that mess up.

Then, TAH-DAH! This part was done!

The other sides of the cabinets were a little more challenging. Of course, they required me to have to rip (that's construction lingo for cut lengthwise) the boards to get stupid slivers to fill in the gaps. Hopefully, once everything gets spackled and caulked, no one will be the wiser. . .

The way I had to handle that handsaw to make those cuts, it probably after all would have been safer for me to use a table saw, but I managed to escape unscathed and with pieces that, though not perfect, would work. I'll clean up the mess tomorrow.