Tongue and groove wall paneling creates an illusion of greater height in a room, and it adds architectural interest.
Thinking about using tongue and groove paneling on your walls or as an accent wall feature? This is a great way to add architectural detail to your home, and it’s less expensive than you think given the cost of plaster and wallboard. Plus, with walls this rich in detail, who needs to hang artwork?
We provided this tiger maple trim to complement the maple tongue and groove wall paneling and maple flooring the client ordered from us.
At Hull Forest Products, we’ve been milling bead board and other styles of wall paneling for our customers for years.
This timber frame home used natural grade white oak flooring and vertical pine tongue and groove paneling. The result is a very natural look that contrasts beautifully with the painted cabinet.
Whether used vertically or horizontally, half way up the wall or floor to ceiling, tongue and groove wall paneling creates a bespoke look.
This cottage style bath features wide plank cherry wood flooring and tulip tongue and groove wall paneling with a beaded edge, both milled by Hull Forest Products.
Tongue and groove paneling can help define your home’s style. The styles shown above range from formal to cottage. But a more rustic take on tongue and groove paneling might use pine like this Virginia log cabin:
The owners of this rustic log cabin chose skip planed and circle sawn pine tongue and groove paneling for its rusticity.
Every species of tree that we mill into flooring can also be used for tongue and groove paneling. Different edge profiles are available. Check out our species galleries to see more photos and find your paneling style. For even more photos, ideas, and inspiration on how to use tongue and groove paneling in your home, we love this article by a Houzz.com contributor:
Figure 1: Hull Forest Products’ wide plank white oak flooring in a mix of 7, 8, and 9 inch widths with a semi-gloss poly finish in a Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts home. Floor #200.
Not sure what kind of wide plank wood floor you want? Flooring manufacturer Hull Forest Products recommends you ask yourself four questions to help determine your style when choosing wide plank flooring:
1. Do you prefer a clear floor or one with some knots or other natural markings?
Clear floors, like the White Oak floor shown above in Figure 1, present a more uniform appearance. While all planks exhibit a natural beauty unique to the tree from which they came (there really are no two alike), there is a more obvious grain and color variation between the planks of floors exhibiting light to heavy character markings. (See Figure 2 below)
Figure 2: Natural grade live sawn White Oak with some character markings. This is the same species of wood as shown in Figure 1, but a different grade and saw cut. This natural grade of wood has character markings such as knots, bark pocket, and mineral streak.
In Figure 2 we have a natural grade of live sawn White Oak with some knots and other character markings that create a homey, less formal, atmosphere.
2. What kind of statement do you want your floor to make (or not make)?
If you want a floor that draws a lot of visual attention, you may like something with strong contrast between heartwood and sapwood, such as Hickory. Or you might prefer a floor that showcases the rustic beauty of character knots, bird peck, and other variations as unique as each individual tree.
If you want your floor to blend into its surroundings a bit more, you may prefer a traditional choice, such as Red Oak or White Oak. Trends come and go, but Oak is a classic. Eye pleasing but not attention-grabbing, Oak accounts for approximately 2/3 of all new floor installations in the United States. We offer flawless Oak floors that showcase clear grain beautifully and we offer character grade Oak floors with varying degrees of rusticity.
3. If you are not sticking with the natural wood color but are planning to stain your floor, are you going for a color that is light, medium, or dark?
Many of our clients choose to keep the natural color of the wood. Others want a bleached floor, or a very dark one. In general, lighter floors lend an open and airy feeling and can make a room seem larger, while darker floors tend to have a vintage, more formal look. Of course you can stain your floor any color you like, but it helps to start with a wood that is close to the color you are trying to achieve. In addition, some woods, such as Oak and Pine, absorb stain more readily than others and can be stained equally well light or dark.
4. Where will the floor go in your home, and what is your tolerance for dings and dents?
All wood floors develop wear marks over time. This is part of the charm of wood, an organic material. Some people actually prefer softer woods because they develop this patina more quickly. For example, our wide pine is very popular among farmhouse and period homeowners because it quickly gives an “aged” feel (See Figure 3 below). Others do not find wear charming, and they tend to choose harder woods such as Maple, Ash, Red Oak, White Oak, andHickory.
Figure 3: Old Sturbridge Village, a living history museum in Massachusetts, uses our wide plank pine. They deliberately apply no finish to the wood so it wears quickly. This floor has been subjected to heavy public foot traffic for years, aging it very quickly so it looks older than it is.
Where you plan to place the floor in your home may make all the difference in your wood selection. Depending on your tolerance, a harder wood may be a better choice for a high-traffic area, while a lower-traffic area such as a bedroom may be the best place for a softer wood.
Your choice of finish will also affect the condition of your floor, with a poly finish providing more protection than an oil finish or no finish.
Placing area rugs over your wood floor in high-traffic areas will also help reduce wear.
The beauty of solid wood floors is that they can be sanded and refinished many times and still have a lifetime of wear left in them.
See Figure 4 for an example of a hardwood floor that is subjected to heavy public foot traffic but still looks great.
Figure 4 below shows the floor of the Frye Boot flagship store on Spring Street in lower Manhattan. We made this floor for them out of ten inch wide natural grade White Oak planks, and they chose to stain it a very dark color. The floor we made for Frye Boot looks fantastic and it gets walked on every day by all kinds of shoes–including high heels.
Figure 4: Our White Oak flooring in the natural grade, Frye Boot flagship store, Spring Street, lower Manhattan.
Your own living room is unlikely to ever see this level of foot traffic, but I point it out as an example of what you might want to go with if you really don’t want to see any dings or dents on your wood floor. For those uncomfortable with any wear, a hardwood like Oak is a great choice.
Have questions or need more advice in choosing a floor? Our flooring specialists can help. Browse our wide plank floors.
Call us toll-free at 1-800-353-3331 or email us today.
February 2009- The nonprofit organization Facts About Wildlife & Nature Society (FAWNS) has recognized Hull Forest Products for their long-time generous support of the Massachusetts Outdoor Expo (“The Big MOE”) with a special “Champion of Youth and Wildlife Award.”
The Big MOE is an outdoor experience where families are encouraged to sample, entirely free of charge, all of the traditional outdoor sports and wildlife activities under expert supervision. They can fish, shoot, kayak, rock-climb, mountain-bike, see and touch wildlife, and learn about recreation and conservation opportunities. The Big MOE also provides an opportunity for youth to participate in nature-related arts and crafts, build a bird nesting box, practice calling wild turkey and waterfowl, and savor the flavor of wild game and fish.
Hull Forest Products, of Pomfret, CT, and Russell, MA, has donated rough-cut pine for more than a thousand nesting boxes over the past several years. Hundreds of these bird boxes are assembled and built by excited local children at the event every year, and are then brought proudly home to improve local wildlife nesting habitat. Hull Forest Products also sponsors and presents the Forestry station at the event, teaching participants how to identify, age, and understand the management of native trees.
Core samples taken in 2003 revealed this stand of eastern hemlock and white pine to then range from 183-250 years old.
June 2003- A Glimpse of the Precolonial Forest in Ashfield, Massachusetts
When our family land trust, Hull Forestlands, purchased the Sears Meadow Forest in Ashfield, Massachusetts in 2000, we realized there was a very old stand of eastern hemlock and white pine on the property. Tall and stately with deeply furrowed bark, these trees stand straight and solemn, their long trunks free of low branches and their canopy darkening the forest floor.
Intrigued by the possibility that this could be old growth, we invited eastern old growth forest expert Bob Leverett and Harvard University Forest Ecologist David Orwig to measure the trees in the stand. Leverett found pines with circumferences ranging from 7.6 to 11.7 feet and heights ranging from 117-131.9 feet, with an average of 260 square foot/acre basal area. One of the biggest pines was estimated to have 3,500 board feet of volume. After conducting ring counts, David Orwig estimated one of the hemlocks could be as old as 250, while the white pines ranged between 183-217 years in age. Orwig also found the pines had very good growth early on, averaging 5-8 rings per inch. His estimates are conservative, and he feels the trees could be much older, but since many were rotten at the core, it was difficult to get an accurate core sample.
According to Leverett, these trees offer a glimpse of the forests of North America prior to settlement by European colonists. And their longevity is remarkable as they are as convenient to access as any old growth in New England.
Hull Forestlands has pledged to protect this stand of old growth and we placed the property under conservation restriction with the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife in 2003.
Hull Forest Products announces the addition of pine timbers to its existing spruce and hardwood timbers line, following its purchase of W.D. Cowls’ pine timbers business. Included in the purchase was the Cowls company timber sizer, which enables Hull Forest Products to surface timbers 16” tall and up to 24” wide—huge pieces of wood—on four sides in one pass.
“We are sorry to see the closing of the Cowls sawmill,” said Bill Hull, founder and CEO of Hull Forest Products. “We’ve been friends with the Cowls for many decades, and we’re thankful that we’re in a position to assist them with this transition. In these tough economic times, our purchase of Cowls’ pine timber business represents a continuing consolidation within the industry and adds another niche to our existing hardwood timber frame business. We look forward to servicing all of Cowls former customers.”
Hull Forest Products offers framers a variety of softwood and hardwood timbers, along with options such as NELMA grade stamping, FSC-certified timbers, timber lengths to 26 feet, and surfacing—all from a single supplier. The company’s land base of largely FSC-certified woodlands in New England also plays a key role in timber procurement, providing a sound resource for the sawmill.
“We are a large landowner in southern New England, as is Cowls, and we harvest timber in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New York,” says Hull. “Because we handle a huge volume of softwood material, the bulk of which does not go to any mills in New England, we have a huge internal resource with which to meet our customer’s needs.”
