I'm going to panel a bit of the hall and the short corridor into the kitchen, to cover up where the dogs had their way with it. It'll be 3 panels to aound elbow height with stiles & rails in oak surrounding poplar plywood panels stained to match. The basic idea is to have top rail & baseboard running the full length, with the stiles butted in between and held with biscuits.
My problem is how to do the internal edges of the framework. I can do it in two ways:
1. put it all together then take a router with a profile bit round it
2. put it all together then add picture-frame beading
1. would look a bit like this (if I used red pine & okoume and was a bit careless):
Pro: quickest to do
Con: other woodworkers would look and say 'lazy bugger'.
2. would look like this, except that the joint between stile & rail would be horizontal, it wouldn't be dusty (ahem) and the mitre wouldn't be so sloppy:
Pro: nice square corners, looks more interesting
Con #1:
hard impossible to find oak beading, and making pine look like oak is a bit hit & miss. Might find obeche if I'm lucky.
Con #2. Higher profile: dogs & humans are going to be rubbing along it.
So I'm asking for opinions: do you think option #1 would be acceptable, given that the hall is pretty dark, or should I go for option #2 and go on looking for beading?
There's a 3rd option, BTW, which is to buy a profile/counter-profile router bit set, but having forked out for the oak my budget is null.