Just a little warning. When this or any joined wooden construction is assembled, leave the joints a little tight in the Summer as it is likely to have expanded in the moist atmosphere. In the Winter, make sure the assembly is quite loose as the winter dryness makes the wood smaller. The length of a piece of wood does not change dramatically, but the width and thickness can change significantly. Keep tabs on the humidity trends before doing fine construction in wood. Also, very wide boards can split out nails and pegs as the expand or contract. It is wise to minimize nails and pegs in very wide boards.
I get some great ideas from Alfred Hitchcock. This has not resulted in any murders...YET, but time will tell.
If you have ever seen the movie: "To Catch a Thief", with Cary Grant and Grace Kelley, then you will perhaps remember the villa on the hillside above the Riviera coast where Cary Grant lived. In this villa, there was a wrought iron staircase leading to a landing. On this landing was a wall that separated his bedroom from the rest of the villa. It was no more than a raised panel wall, of only one thickness. Raised panel woodwork is done no better than in France. This particular wall was probably made from Chestnut, though Pecan and Fruit wood come to mind. Unfortunately, fruit woods are rare in wide boards. In this country we could use Walnut or Cherry, or Birdseye, Curly or Tiger Maple. I go for the medium browns myself. If your pocketbook does not stretch into the hardwood range, knotty pine would be wonderful if stained to a nice Punkin orange(a colonial and 19th C product) or even pickled. Paint with diluted white paint, allow to sit a moment and wipe it off.
Well, why not put this to use here in our limited space.
Now is a good time to discuss the Golden Mean. this is a ratio of length to width of a rectangle, building facade, etc., that is particularly pleasing to the eye. Basically, if you are making a book case to stand against your wall, the ideal proportions would be: (if you are going to your 8 foot ceiling, just choosing a round number for conveniences sake,) 8 feet high by about 5 feet wide. the ratio, rounded off to a convenient number is 1 to 1.61 as an ideal relationship of height to width. This can be applied to many design decisions. How about height of chair rails in relation to wall height, shapes of panels on a door or a wall in this case, window height to width...all sorts of things. keep it in mind when designing this wall.
Also, it is a good idea to look at all sorts of old paneled walls and doors in antique houses in your area. And remember too, that such research issues should be a pleasure to research rather than a chore.
If you have the resources, do not forget that you could easily go to a building materials salvage yard and buy half a dozen identical doors and make a wall from them! this is true of all sorts of building materials, from fireplaces and windows to sinks and toilets.
Draw a design on paper of the size and shape of panels and how the wall will fit into the wall opening.
the ends will be an issue if you make a mistake, but remember you can place mouldings in the corners next to adjacent walls to fill gaps or to minimize a too wide board.
Basically, this is a very simplified paneled wall. I do not intend to teach you to make the real thing here. That is just beyond my powers of description, and there are a number of sources for designs for fine woodwork. No, this is a Pseudo raised panel wall.
Just a snip of the wall from "To Catch a Thief"
The panels are large full height rectangles probably in chestnut wood.
The door is the panel on the right.
You will need an upright board for the ends of the wall at right and left, there will be upright boards dividing the raised panels all along the wall. you will have to design this wall and determine the correct number for your wall once you know how this works. there will be top and bottom horizontal panels in each gap between the upright boards, dividing horizontals between each raised panel, and finally the raised panels themselves.You must be very careful, though not anal about you design, as it must really all be cut out before you assemble it. The end boards can wait for last as they might be the parts that have the greatest variables.
The upright boards will have a groove cut the length of the edges of the boards. This should be about 1/4 of an inch wide, and about as deep. Try to make this dead center on the edge. You can do this by setting your rip fence on a table saw 1/4 of an inch from the rip fence with 1/4 inch of the blade exposed. Test on a piece of scrap wood. (if you live in a very dry or damp part of the country, or in an area where humidity varied wildly, you may want to do this 1/2 inch deep and alter the rest of the boards accordingly.)
Run the edge of the board through the saw with an extra pair of hands to help, then turn the board around and run it through with the other face of the board against the rip fence. This should give you the 1/4 inch groove, centered. Do this on all edges of all the upright boards.
Make a wider board for each end of the wall, but only groove one edge of each board. these end boards may be shaved down a bit to fit as necessary.
If you will put a door in one of these walls, you will do a one grooved edge board for each side of the door, except from the top of the door to the ceiling where a solid board will fit above the door.
Make the door of a single raised panel framed by four boards. See illustration.
Now you will have to measure the intended gap between the uprights, and add 1/2 inch. these boards should be about the same width as the width of the uprights, or a bit narrower.
using the same set up of the rip fence, run the ends of the boards, lying flat on their sides through the saw. This will begin cutting the shoulders of a tenon on either side of the board. See illustration. Run the board through again, this time pulled slightly away from the fence to remove any remaining wood from the end of the tenon. See illustration.
Now turn the boards on edge, and run them through as you did the uprights to make a groove on the edge of each, both edges.
Make a panel just like the other horizontals, about 1 1/2 times as wide for top and bottom, work the ends the same way, and do only one edge groove in each.
Now the raised panels.
Cut the panels 1/2 inch wider and 1/2 inch longer than the allotted space, to fit onto the grooves. Set the rip fence 2 inches from the blade. Run all four sides for the flat surface of the panels through the saw to form a sort of tic tac toe pattern of grooves. now set the rip fence less that 1/4 inch from the blade, and tilt the blade away from the fence. Measure the edge of the panels so that the blade will cut from the bottom of the groove you already cut to the edge of the wood, leaving a thin edge to go into the grooves of your wall boards. Do at least one entire panel as a test before committing a good piece of wood to it. See the illustration.
Run all of the panels on all four sides till the bevel of the edges are completed for all panels.
Note that doing the entire wall in the same size panels will reduce the headaches in designing this wall, but varying the sizes, like square at the top, rectangular in the middle and very long rectangular at the bottom, will make a very pleasing wall.
Sand everything then assemble the wall.
Using a moulding of your choice, glue and/or nail a moulding to the ceiling or a beam following the course of the intended wall. Use a plumb bob or a washer attached to a thread to hang a line from the top moulding to locate the position of the floor moulding. The flat sides of the mouldings should face the intended position of the wall. Start at one end of the wall, but placing the first end board snug against the wall. If the wall is uneven, you have two choices.
1. You will either use a level to find the straightest upright course possible, and tack it in place top and bottom. Later you will put a moulding over the gap against the wall.
2. The second choice is to use a level to tack the upright board in place temporarily. Using a compass, lay the pin side against the wall, and drag the compass down along the wall while the pencil side of the compass draws a line on the board. Then cut the board to match the line, but work as close to the edge of the board as possible.
If you are using the second method, you should be starting out with more board width than is needed to complete the entire wall. When you cut the boards down to fit against the wall you should come close to the correct measurement for the wall width. You can always take a bit more off either side or one to make it fit. Good planning!!!
Now push the board as snug as possible to the wall, and against the mouldings top and bottom.
Tack in place with a couple of thin finish nails, partly driven through the board and into the floor and ceiling(or overhead beam), at an angle.
Next begin with one of the bottom horizontal pieces. Slide the tongue into the groove of the upright and push it down against the floor. Add a raised panel to the grooves in the bottom board and side board.
Next add one of the two grooved horizontal boards. Continue to the ceiling, ending with one of the single edged boards with the solid edge toward the ceiling.
Add a double grooved upright board against the stack of smaller boards, working the tongues into the grooves of the new upright. Continue across the wall, ending with a single edged board against the opposite wall. You may need to trim the last board or add a moulding against the wall as mentioned at the beginning of the wall.
Make sure, if the weather is humid, that you have pushed everything as tightly together as possible. If the weather is dry, do not push as snugly to allow for expansion in damp weather.
If all is together properly, finish nailing in all the finish nails that have been holding the boards in place. Add a second moulding on the back of the wall at the floor and ceiling of the wall, and glue and/or nail into place snugly against the wall.
This will create a raised panel look at the front of the wall, and a more Shaker panel look at the back of the wall.
Sand everything and paint, varnish or wax.
If you have decided to put a door in the wall, end the wall with a single sided upright on either side of the future door opening. Add a filler piece in the space over the door opening. You may also have a transom window made to fit in the opening with four or five panes of glass, or even a single piece of stained or textured glass or crafted stained glass panel.
To do this, you must cut a groove in just the portion of the side boards that will hold the cross board, cleaning the groove out to fit the tongue at the bottom with a narrow chisel. See illustration.
Put the three boards of the door casing on the side of the paneling that does not have the door swing. The casing should be smaller by half an inch on the two sides and the top of the door, creating a lip for the door to catch on when it is closed.
On the swing side of the door wall, just trim the edge with moulding or casing to fit exactly around the opening.
If you have good woodworking skills, make the door with the same panel pattern as the wall, using through tenons and and mortises. If you do not have such skills, you may make the door to fit using two single edge grooved uprights and the panels and rails as you did with the rest of the wall. You will then have to glue and nail solid boards, to the back side of the door to fit inside the casing of the back of the door. This will hold the rails, panels and uprights together. Rout a moulding around the entire back side of the door brace, either before applying it or after. See illustration.
To be continued
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