Simple Wood Panelling Tutorial ~ Vintage Kitchen Style ~ Life with Holly

For about a million years I’ve wanted to update the island in our kitchen. It was super boring, finished with just the cheap melamine end panels. It really needed some shwazzing up! This was really quick and easy to do, so here’s how we did it in my Simple Wood Panelling Tutorial.

Grey Country kitchen wood panelling tutorial by Life with Holly

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How to Add Simple Wood Panelling in the Kitchen

The first thing we did was to give the surfaces a clean with sugar soap to remove any grease that may be lurking and would prevent the adhesive from working properly. I don’t want the wood panelling to fall off!

We bobbed down to B&Q and bought some packs of tongue and groove cladding. This stuff is amazing! It’s lightweight, easy to cut and cheap too at around £6 per pack. We used 4 packs so ended up taking one back for a refund next time we went.

We measured from the floor to the worktop and cut the pieces of wood to length. There are two sides to the cladding, so make sure you’re consistent with your cuts and keep the side you want facing up. Mr R did not do this – he ended up having to cut some of the L shaped sections again because he didn’t notice the two faces of the wood were different. It’s really obvious, by the way.

Mr R’s dad bought him a work bench for Christmas one year that we have never used. He thought he’d channel his inner carpenter while doing this job, and so got the work bench out of the cellar. Unfortunately we had to assemble the chuffing thing as it was in a kit form! Assembling the work bench took us longer than cladding the island FFS. He used this to clamp the wood and cut it to size using a hand saw. The wood is quite thin so anything more powerful may splinter it.

After we cut the pieces to length and checked they fit, it was time to use adhesive to stick them into place. We used No More Nails. Unfortunately I didn’t check when I picked it up, but this tube of NMN needed a cartridge gun which we didn’t have. I ended up pushing the adhesive out of the tube using an old ice cream scoop. Not ideal, so I’d always recommend checking!

I put a splodge of NMN on the back of each piece and worked my way clockwise around the island, putting a panel on then slotting the next one into its groove. We then pushed chairs up against it while the adhesive dried.

Grey Country kitchen wood panelling tutorial by Life with Holly Oswatrol ESP primer

When the glue was dry, I used my go-to primer (ESP from Oswatrol) to prime the wood. I don’t know if this was necessary though. Then I gave it a couple of coats of Estate Eggshell in Purbeck Stone from Farrow and Ball to match the kitchen units.