How To Paint American Beadboard and get professional results

Below are the steps that we would use to paint American Beadboard Panels with the Poplar Top Cap and Poplar Baseboard Moldings.

How To Paint Beadboard Panels and Get Professional Results

Below are the steps required to get professional painting results. In each step we give product recommendations based on our painting experience. If you have questions with regards to the the painting process or painting products you can give us a call.

American Beadboard paint kit

Beadboard Painting Process Steps

  • 1 Ready Patch nail holes, outside corner butt joints and molding scarf joint seams. Do not Ready Patch inside corner seams because you will caulk them in step 7. Ready Patch is the preferred wood filler because it spreads easy, does not shrink, dries quickly and can be primed when dry to the touch.

    MH Ready Patch Wood Filler professional spackling and patching compound for interior and exterior use. Shrink and Crack Resistant, fast drying and easy to sand
  • 2 Lightly Sand Ready Patched nail holes and seams with 240 Grit Sponge Sandpaper 5" x 5" -Lightly Sand Ready Patched nail holes and seams with 240 Grit Sponge Sandpaper 5" x 5" - This sponge sandpaper is ideal for getting into the crevices of the beads.

    240 Grit Sponge Sandpaper is great for getting into the bead crevices
  • 3 Vacuum the Beadboard and the moldings to pick up the majority of the dust and use a clean lint free cloth to wipe down the beadboard panels and the moldings.

    use a vacuum with a brush attchement to pick up most of the dust, then use a tack cloth to make sure you remove all dust before priming
  • 4 Prime the beadboard and moldings with a good water based primer. We have had great success with SMART PRIME because it covers well, dries fast and sands easily.
    Prime the top cap and baseboard moldings in the horizontal direction and prime the beadboard panels in the vertical direction. We recommend a high quality rat tail paint brush. A rat tail brush is ideal for fine trim painting because it is not as thick as a standard brush and will not hold too much paint. Elder & Jenks 2 1/2: Rat Tail Angle Sash Brush with 100% Chinex Chiseled Filaments is a great brush that is made in the USA.

    Smart Prime by Zinsser is a good water based primer. It drys fast and covers wella rat tail brush is ideal for fine trim painting because it does not hold as much paint as a stanrd brush
  • 5 Lightly sand the primed surfaces with 320 Grit Sponge Sandpaper 5"x5". Most of the focus should be on the crevices of the beads and the ready patched areas.

    320 Grit Sponge Sandpaper is great for getting into the bead crevices
  • 6 Vacuum the Beadboard and the moldings to pick up the majority of the dust and use a clean lint cloth to wipe down the panels and the moldings.
    If necessary apply a second coat of primer, repeat light sanding and cleaning steps.

    use a vacuum with a brush attchement to pick up most of the dust, then use a tack cloth to make sure you remove all dust before caulking
  • 7 Caulk inside corner and bottom of beadboard panels to fill the void between the beadboard and the baseboard molding with a quality caulk such as Dap Alex Plus Latex Caulk.

    Use a good latex caulk that is paintable to fill voids between the beadboard and the baseboard. Also use in the inside corners
  • 8 Vacuum the Beadboard and the moldings to pick up the majority of the dust and use a clean lint cloth to wipe down the panels and the moldings.

    use a vacuum with a brush attchement to pick up most of the dust, then use a tack cloth to make sure you remove all dust before painting
  • 9 Start painting from one side of the wall section and work across painting the moldings and beadboard panels together. Paint the top cap and baseboard in the horizontal direction and the beadboard panels in the vertical direction. Don't paint more than 10" across at a time. This process of moving across simultaneously is important so that the paint won't setup and get tacky.
    Never paint from the gallon container. We recommend pouring a couple of inches of paint into a paint trim cup.
    Use a good quality trim paint. We have had great success with Advance by Benjamin Moore. It provides a premium quality finish designed for interior trim. It is formulated to give a hard, tough scrubbable finish and is ideal for beadboard wainscoting.
    Coverage - Each gallon of Advance Paint will cover approximately 300 square feet. Example - if your beadboard kit is 3 feet tall you should be able to paint approximately 100 linear feet per gallon, so if you are applying 2 coats of paint each gallon will cover approximately 50 linear feet.

    Advance paint by Benjamin Moore is a very good quaulity paint for the beadboard and the moldings