Panelling and moulding a new room opening

Wilson joinery · 15 Feb 2023

Hi everyone

I’ve been asked by a customer to mdf board around this opening and install a moulding both sides to match the mouldings around existing door frames. If you were going to do this, would you fix battons onto the walls and ceiling first to get it nice and square for the mdf to attach too or would you fit the mdf straight onto the walls and pack behind to get them vertical? By the way I’ll be using 18mm mrmdf as I need this to again match the the panelling/moulding detail around the existing doors which coincidentally have an 18mm edge visible with a small chamfer.

Cheers
Pete

peter-harrison · 15 Feb 2023

I think I'd go for option 2- there's nothing to gain by levelling up a load of battens when you could just level the MDF. I assume there aren't doors fitting in there? So it just has to look right.
Nice house BTW!

Spectric · 15 Feb 2023

It looks like a traditional house so you have to ask yourself how square is square, it needs to look part of the room so you could just stick the MDF to the wall using something like Sikaflex. If there are issues with squareness then could you use the mouldings to retain the panel.

Wilson joinery · 15 Feb 2023

Thanks guys. I maybe didn’t explain myself very well. The reason for the battens on the wall was just to make sure the mdf would sit straight (don’t necessarily need the opening to be exactly square). My thoughts were it would be much easier to fit battens to the wall and get them all plumb and then just offer up the mdf and screw that into the battens. This would avoid the risk of the mdf bending into any hollows if the battens weren’t there and also a lot easier to attach the mdf to battens than into the solid wall (changing drills, making sure the piece doesn’t move between holes etc). Also the edge of the panel will be visible so that’s another reason why I need it straight so the visible gap between edge of panel and start of moulding is the same.

Matt@Nearfield · 16 Feb 2023

Do a lot of this. I always baton the walls. Easy yo run new services to, takes out lamps and bumps, gets a better fixing imo. You can actually use drywall bonding with mdf but I prefer not to. Hth, M.