I am finishing off my basement.
I installed 3/8" drywall onto the studs, and now I plan to put paneling on top of that.
On the back of the paneling it says to use either glue or nails.
I would prefer to use glue only (so that there aren’t any nails visible in the paneling).
Will the glue be adequate to hold the paneling onto the drywall?
There are a number of ‘liquid nails’ type adhesives now available, these should be more than adequate to the task, unless the panelling is especially heavy.
This site has some advice:
http://doityourself.com/panel/panapply.htm
My concern would be that the paneling would not want to stay on the wall until the adhesive dried, but they don’t seem to worry about that. (I do see that they say to put one nail in to hold the panel in place … maybe they’re a little worried. :))
Hope this helps.
It also depends on the type of paneling. Wood, for example, will expand and shrink with the humidity (especially in a basement) and is more likely to pull away from the adhesive. If it is some kind of manufactured material this would not be so much of a problem.
Will you have any trim? Molding, chair rail, floor boards? you could place the nails where they will be hidden.
I’ve used a couple of different brands of these adhesives and found that they do have loads of ‘grab’ - the panel isn’t likely to fall off the wall, but there is a risk of it sliding out of place; you can probably overcome this by tapping a lcouple of long panel pins into the drywall to keep it in place, you can pull them out afterwards.
If you are at all concerned that the panels will fall off, you could just hold (prop)them in place with a bit of springy timber.
Paneling can be glued to the drywall, but, with age you will most likely want to remove this paneling at some time, especially in a basement location. At that time you will have a lot more work on your hands removing both the paneling and the drywall.
And —
Go to the local lumber yard and buy some cedar shims(long thin wedge). You can use these to shim under the paneling and hold it up off the floor untill the glue dries. It’ll help keep things plumb.
You can score these with a knife and break them, double them up whatever. Lots of uses.
I don’t think I would just rest paneling on the concrete.
Kind of depends on what kind of trim and such you are planning on using too.
And —
Go to the local lumber yard and buy some cedar shims(long thin wedge). You can use these to shim under the paneling and hold it up off the floor untill the glue dries. It’ll help keep things plumb.
You can score these with a knife and break them, double them up whatever. Lots of uses.
I don’t think I would just rest paneling on the concrete.
Kind of depends on what kind of trim and such you are planning on using too.
Also - the paneling that I worked with years ago was a pain to nail through - tap, tap, bounce owwww, tap, tap, tap. It’s a hell of a lot easier to drive a 16p into a couple two bys than nail one of those paneling nails. You could rent a finish nailer and air compresser. Gonna cost a bit though.
And if you nail or don’t. Take a pencil, or piece of tape and mark off on the floor and ceiling where your wall studs are. If you gotta put a spike in it to hold it for the glue, you will know where to nail. And if you are nailing, you know where to nail.
I would go with the trim gun myself.
I panelled the bottom 39 inches around my dining room and hall with Western Red Cedar. The panelling was kiln dried - very thin and very light. Before sticking it up I bought and cut the skirting board and a rebated board to finish the top. I glued up the panels and as I finished each wall I nailed up the boards at the top and bottom of the panels. No problems at all. The product I used was called Liquid Nails. Years later when the room was renovated it was nearly impossible to peel of panels.
FWIW - I saw a home improvement show once where the were putting up paneling and suggested painting a black/dark vertical line (1" wide) where two pieces of paneling will meet on your wall.
That way, if the cuts don’t match up perfectly, you won’t be left with 1/16" of white drywall showing at your seams.
Also, keep the panelling off the floor (don’t let bottom rest on floor direclty whjen hanging) becuase virtually all wood expands and contracts. Shimming it leaves just enough room for it to expand.
So, keep in mind that you should get wood panels inside the enviroment in which they will live for 2 days before installing them. They will adjust to the temp/humidity and when put up will make only minimal adjustments on their own as the envronment changes.
If you use the right adhesive, you’ll have to call god in to remove it.
I have a friend who just had this done by a professional carpenter and he’s got some bubbling going on. It separated a good 1/2 inch from the wall.
Why not nail at the top and bottom, which will be covered by the trim?
