How to clad a wall
Cladding's not only a cover-up for walls in poor condition, but also provides good insulation in cold rooms and helps to reduce noise travelling from room to room as well. The most common types of cladding are the tongued-and-grooved softwood boards. Here's a guide on how to clad a wall effectively.
Level of difficulty
Level 3: Advanced
What you need
- Cladding
- Battens
- Quadrant beading or coving
- Saw
- Softwood battens
- Hammer
- Nails
- Spirit level
- Pencil
- Sandpaper
The steps to follow
1. Before starting, acclimatize the cladding for at least 48 hours.
Note:
Acclimatization allows the material to adjust to the room temperature and humidity, which prevents shrinking or warping of the material.
2. Remove all wall-fixtures and fittings.
3. Turn the power off and disconnect all electronic outlets.
4. To frame the mounting box, fit short battens to the wall.
5. Reroute the circuit cable into a new box by surface mounting it over the flush mounted box.
6. Cut the cladding boards you plan to use on your wall.
7. Use fixing grounds to fix the boards in place and nail softwood battens to secure them in place.
8. Fit the first battens below ceiling level, followed by two other battens - one third and two thirds of the way down the wall.
9. If you have no plans of fitting a skirting board, you can fit a fourth batten just above floor level. Otherwise, use skirting boards as the lower fixing ground.
10. Check with a spirit level that the edge is vertical.
11. Fit the cladding boards closely to the mounting box and nail to the battens.
12. Trace the profile of the side wall on the board.
13. Cut along the profile with a saw, fit it back in place and nail it to the supporting battens.
14. Drive two nails through the protruding tongue along the exposed edge, and saw through the face of the board close to the edge. Flatten the exposed nails with a hammer.
15. Slide the next board over the tongue of the first one and secure it by nailing through its tongue. Follow this procedure until the cladding work is complete.
16. For the last board to fit against the next corner, nail it lightly on top of the last board and trace the wall profile on the board edge.
17. Saw along and fit the board in place and nail through its face into the wall battens.
18. At the door openings, cut along the door architrave.
19. Install your new skirting board.
20. Conceal the ends of the boards at ceiling level by nailing them on slim quadrant beading or coving.
21. Sand the surface of the boards lightly and you're ready to start decorating!
