Wood panels for walls: durable finish, elegant interior

Gusevsky Andrey Anatolyevich

Classic wood cladding

Speaking about the interior decoration of residential premises, it is impossible not to note first of all that wood panels for walls have obvious advantages over all other materials. Using them, the room can be decorated in any architectural style. And even if these are ordinary rectangular modules with a smooth surface, the interior looks interesting and quite respectable.

And if this is boiserie - decorative wooden panels on the wall, with beautiful milling, carving and gilding, then the dwelling can automatically be classified as elite. Taking the video in this article as a basis, we will talk about the varieties and methods of installing wood panels, as well as consider the most successful finishing options, in our opinion, made with their help.

Advantages of interior panels

Europe has always set the tone for fashion, including interior design. Most historical architectural styles originated in France. Therefore, wood panels on the walls and began to be called the French word "boiserie", which to this day denote a wooden paneling.

• In the Baroque and Empire times, no wood substitutes existed, and therefore the word “boiserie” always meant a tree - moreover, valuable species.
• The panels, which adorned only aristocratic houses, were decorated with carvings and gilding, covered with satin and brocade. Looking at the photos below, we can make sure that everyone is doing it now.
• However, the cost of such finishes has always been affordable only for people with a certain income - and I must say that nothing has changed in this regard over the past millennium.
• Yes, it is understandable: to make a classic panel, a tree trunk of appropriate thickness is required. The greater its width, the more difficult it is to select the source material - hence the high cost.

With the creation of new technologies that make it possible to create sheet materials from waste from woodworking production, it became possible to use bowsers, including for "economy" finishing.

A modern approach to wood cladding

Wooden interior panel, today it can be wooden only conditionally, or even represent a complete imitation. The shape and appearance of the product are also significantly different, but the classic options are popular at all times.

Such panels are similar to paneled door leaf, which makes it possible to produce doors in the same style with walls, and many manufacturers offer them as a set.

Classic wood wall panels on the walls, made in the same style with doors

• And yet, boiserie can be equipped with ceiling panels and false beams, decorative skirting boards, cornices, corner elements, pilasters, half columns.
• Panels made of natural wood with milling, manufactured and completed to order. The reason is simple: it is impossible to cut profile products without violating the proportions of the milled relief, and the dimensions and design features of the room must be taken into account in their manufacture.
• The advantages of this finishing material are not limited to its magnificent aesthetics.These include excellent heat and sound insulation characteristics, an incredibly long service life, which, with careful handling and adequate care, can be almost unlimited.

Note! It is very convenient that in case of accidental damage, there is no need to disassemble the entire skin, and the damaged element can be replaced, or simply rearranged to another, less noticeable place.

• Wooden panels for walls and ceilings (seePanel Ceiling: Rules for Doing Work), today they are used not only in offices, but also in clubs, cafes, restaurants, beauty salons and exhibition halls. As for the dwellings, imagine that panels can decorate with themselves not only a home office or library.
• They can be used in absolutely any room - up to the toilet rooms. Just the panels in this case should be made of wood that is resistant to moisture: larch, tropical woods, glued massif - the last option we just see in the example below.

As an option, bathroom upholstery typed from a heat-treated board, which is suitable even for facades and terraces. And even more so, it will serve normally indoors - the main thing is only to have the opportunity to ventilate it. Above, we gave several examples of the use of boiserie in the design of bathrooms.

Bedroom with wood paneling

Advice! Keep in mind that panels in bathrooms are not an option for tiny bathrooms in Khrushchev’s houses. And indeed, in small rooms, wooden cladding in the form of large-format panels does not look harmonious. But a narrow board, or even a rail mounted with a gap, is an excellent solution.

Boiserie Application Concepts

Returning to wall panels of a traditional form, we note that the style of the design of the room determines the size of the cladding area of ​​the walls and the color scheme of the skin. Since boiserie is often included in a furniture set - for example, for an office (seeCabinet finishing: a non-standard approach) or living room, all its elements will be made in a single, often classical style.

Often, it provides for wall cladding over the entire height. The ceiling is decorated with rooms in the Art Nouveau style, or Empire style, but in this case, the upper part of the panels is plywood, covered with fabric or leather.

But in the so-called bourgeois interiors, to which Provence can be attributed, the lining surrounds the perimeter of the walls only to a small height. With color, too, not everything is clear. For interior design in the English style, usually take dark panels. In Italian and French interiors light colors prevail.

Well, as for modern design solutions, then they can be based on a variety of options. These are simple rectangular modules with veneered (seeVeneered panels for wall cladding - the beauty of wood in your interior), laminated or varnished surface, artificially aged, as well as combined, in which the tree goes well with glass, metal, leather.

Materials, prices, face design

Boisers can serve not only as a cloth for the interior door, but also for built-in cabinets. Actually therefore, panels for walls made of wood are often made by manufacturers of cabinet furniture.

• Their cost is not calculated per unit, but per 1m2 or 1m.p. It varies greatly, and depends not only on the type of wood or veneer, but also on the complexity of milling and the method of decoration.
• From natural wood growing in our latitudes, cedar, ash, beech, alder, oak, and maple are used in the manufacture of wall panels. But basically only small-format panels (waist) are made from the array.
• For the manufacture of large-format boiserie, there is either a furniture board (glued massif), or plywood and MDF. The price of veneered panels starts from 15,000 per 1 m2. Glued wood, and even more so solid wood, will cost an order of magnitude more expensive.

In the decoration of rooms can also be used panel panels. Belt options are collected from slats 60-80 cm long and 10-35 cm wide, fixed with a tongue-and-groove method.

If the wall is revetted along the entire height, the panels can be assembled from small-format tiles having fastenings at all ends. Both the one and the other type of panels are used not only for wall cladding, but also on ceilings.

Sometimes a panel looks like it is composed of small tiles or fragments, but in reality it is a module with a large format. Typically, such products have a solid convex relief, which is called 3D.

Volumetric panels can be made not only from an array or MDF. Today, eco-panels, in the production of which crushed bamboo, reeds, wood chips, are in high esteem. Although this is not wood, as such, the material is natural and environmentally friendly. The dimensions of these panels are standard: 500 * 500 m, or 625 * 800 mm.

Bamboo panels with 3D relief for painting

The color is often white, which allows you to paint the wall or ceiling in any color - although there are color options. These panels are good for everyone, but the cost is quite high. At a minimum, this is 4,400 rubles. per 1 m2. Panels with a 3D design of the front surface are usually used only as an accent - that is, for facing one wall, or its fragment.

Panel Mounting Principles

It is impossible to imagine the installation technology without knowing which specific panels, and in what configuration, will be used. Therefore, our instructions will only cover general issues regarding the preparation and wall cladding. We really hope that for those who are going to do the finishing themselves, the information presented by us will seem interesting and will be useful.

How to prepare the walls

Do not believe those who claim that the base for paneling with wood panels does not need any preparation.

This is the common opinion of people who have never done this themselves, and have no idea about the process:

• There are options for panels that can be mounted on glue (take the same eco-panels). For them, the wall should be aligned in the most thorough manner. Unless you need to smooth and grind the surface, as in the preparation for painting - but the base must definitely be smooth and strong.
• If the wall is sheathed with drywall, plywood, or chipboard, into which the screws enter without preliminary drilling, the installation of the cladding can be done not on the crate, but directly to the wall.
• When mounting on a crate, you can hide some of the flaws of the surface, but it does not lie down on the curved wall and rail in the right way. It is necessary to install linings under the fasteners, which can compensate for 2-5 mm differential. Otherwise, at least partial alignment must be made.

• Profile boisers, which are sold in the kit, are generally assembled according to the principle of a puzzle. On an uneven wall, the elements simply cannot be docked in a good quality. In addition, they do not always cover the entire wall, but only encircle it along the lower perimeter.

The upper part is either painted or glued with wallpaper, which requires careful preparation.You will not plaster from above, leaving the bottom of the wall uneven. It is especially important to remove old plaster from the base, which does not hold well.

Cladding assembly

We will describe the assembly process on the example of classic panels, equipped with all necessary elements by the manufacturer, such as in the photo below. In this case, the wall is not revetted along the entire height, before the installation of the panels it is necessary not only to align the walls, but also to finish the part of the walls that remains in sight.

Small-format waist trim

So:

• Since these panels are complete, their installation begins with the installation of the baseboard. It is fixed with screws either directly to the base, if it is wooden, or to dowels installed in drilled holes, if it is concrete or plaster.
• For mounting fixtures, a mounting groove is provided on the baseboard. At the end of the installation, it is closed with a decorative cap, which can be attached to glue or double-sided furniture tape.
• There is a special quarter at the top of the baseboard, in the cavity of which the panels and vertical connecting strips are installed, covering the joints between them. They have side grooves where the vertical edges of the panels wind up.
• When they are mounted along the entire height of the wall, the first tier is blocked by a horizontal facade strip, which also has a quarter for the next row of panels. Further, everything is mounted in the same way. Finishes facing a profile eaves.
• When installing the panels, it is important to observe the proportions of the cladding, therefore, most often it leads from the central axis of the wall to the corners. Thus, if you have to cut the panel, which is quite possible when buying a ready-made, rather than a custom set, then the short part will be in the corner.

Note! In ready-made kits, the relief on the cladding is obtained not due to milling on the panels, but due to the profile connecting parts. The panels themselves are smooth, so they can be cut.

• When belt decoration is performed, the cornice is installed not only under the ceiling, but also in the middle of the wallby separating two different types of finishes. There are kits in which, in case of belt decoration with panels, vertical elements are mounted in the upper part of the wall, as if drawing the surface on the sections.

Due to wallpaper or decorative plaster, which decorates the upper part of the wall, it seems that on top it is also lined with panels, only sheathed in the center with textiles.

With the help of additional slats, it is possible to make a fachwerk finish, in which the wall panels are wooden and are not provided at all. This version of the decoration of one wall, perfectly combined with a belt of panels on the rest.