Cedar closets keep your clothes smelling fresh and clean, while repelling moths and other insects. You can buy cedar closet kits with boards that snap together, but it's just as easy and more affordable to buy basic tongue-and-groove cedar wall planks and install them as you would any other horizontal paneling. If your closet happens to have open stud walls, you can install the cedar directly to the studs. Otherwise, buy a stud finder at your local hardware store. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
1. Locate and mark all the studs in the walls using your electronic stud finder. Use a level and pencil to draw vertical floor-to-ceiling lines at the location of each stud.
2. Draw a horizontal line across the bottom of the wall, spaced from the floor by the width of a cedar board plus ½ inch. For example, if the boards are 10 inches across, the horizontal mark should be 10 1/2 inches up from the floor. Use your level to ensure the line is straight and level.
3. Measure the wall at the base, from end to end. Use a miter saw to cut a piece of cedar plank to that length.
4. Hold the plank to the wall with the tongue side facing upward and lined up under the horizontal line, to create ½ inch of space below the board.
5. Secure the plank by shooting trim nails along the top and bottom at every point where the plank crosses a stud, based on the vertical lines you drew.
6. Cut a second plank to size. Place it on top of the first one, linking the grooved side down tightly over the first board's tongue.
7. Measure and cut the second board. Set it atop the first one, setting the grooved bottom edge over the tongue of the lower board. Shoot nails at an angle through the upward-facing edge of the new board, at each point where it crosses a stud, so the nails will be hidden by the next board.
8. Repeat for each new plank, working your way up the wall. Use a table saw to cut the top piece along its length so it fits along the ceiling, leaving a ½ inch space. Repeat for each wall of the closet.
9. Measure and cut trim to span the perimeter of each wall--along the floor and ceiling and in the vertical corners--using your miter saw and trim nailer. The trim will cover the spaces at the top and bottom of the floor.
Tags: crosses stud, from floor, horizontal line, inch space, point where, Repeat each
