Why cedar closet

In addition to repelling insects, the oils in red cedar wood prevents the spread of mold and mildew. This feature especially useful in the oppressive humidity that plagues much of the United States. Thinking about how to prevent mildew from festering in these dank climates can often be a source of many sleepless nights, this coming from personal experience.

Thankfully, red cedar closets swoop in once again to rescue humanity from the depths of anxiety and panic surrounding the thought of storing clothes for the winter. This scent that percolates from red cedar was the sole reason for the genuine euphoria that I experienced upon my first encounter with a cedar closet back in Trust me on this one. Guide to campus life during winter break and D-Term.

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VIVA la Fiesta! A Letter to the Editor. Eastern red cedar is sold in both large pressboard panels and tongue-and-groove boards. Panels make for an easy, cut-to-fit installation, but they have a rough texture that can snag clothing. Tongue-and-groove boards, shown in this installation, require more cuts but give a closet a smooth, custom-finished look.

To use cedar to its fullest, you should line a whole closet with it. As This Old House senior technical editor Mark Powers shows below, all you need is a dray to nail up the wood. To install cedar lining, it is typical to line the three interior walls, but you might also consider continuing the coverage on the back of the door and on the ceiling. If your closet has baseboard molding, you can leave it in place as long as the baseboard is thicker than the cedar.

But you can also take the lining down to the floor by first carefully removing the baseboard with a pry bar. Then you can use cove molding against the floor to hide the cut edges. That same cove can go at the top of the wall to hide the small gap above the last course. The raw cut ends of the boards will intersect in the corners of the closet, but as long as you start your installation on the back wall and cut the sidewall boards to fit snugly, the seam will appear neat from the front.

However, if you have any trouble getting a tight fit to make an even intersection of back and side, you can always hide it with corner bead. There are several ways to get the cedar on the walls. You can nail it to the studs, or adhere it with construction adhesive. This Old House general contractor Tom Silva uses a two-pronged approach, holding planks in place with adhesive before nailing them.

Nailing can be done with a pneumatic pin nailer or a good old-fashioned hammer and 5d nails, though without a pneumatic nailer you may need to drill pilot holes to avoid splitting the thin wood. Then, once the cedar is in place, it will last for years and will only require a quick, light sanding to instantly rejuvenate it and bring back its aromatic effects.

Use a stud finder to locate and mark the studs along the walls of the closet. Or, starting in a corner of the closet, where there's usually a stud, measure the walls in inch increments to approximate the rest of the studs' positioning. Once you know where all the studs are and have marked them, use a level turned vertically to draw plumb lines at each mark. Mark each stud position from floor to ceiling to show you where to place nails when you install the cedar.

Begin at the back wall. If the baseboard or floor at the bottom of the wall is sloped, you will need to scribe the first cedar board to that slope so that all the subsequent courses stay level. Hold cedar board, tongue side up, at the bottom of the wall.

Position a level on top of the tongue and level the cedar. But, if you are undeterred by all of this and want to cedarize your closets, what can you expect? The sheets, though, have a flakeboard look, and may not be the most aesthetically pleasing approach.

Ironically, after giving its readers a fairly comprehensive treatment of the subject, the article concludes:. While aromatic red cedar smells sweet and fresh to us, its aromatic oils repel moths, cockroaches, and silverfish. But cedar is not insect proof. In fact, dry-cleaning and then sealing clothes in garment bags probably offers better protection. Also recommended are the inexpensive, stackable 17 quart You might even want to empty your closets and caulk any obvious floor leaks, bearing in mind that determined moths will definitely get into your closets via windows and doors.

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