It’s already week 3 of the One Room Challenge and this week we are tackling the DIY board and batten wall. I have always wanted to create a board and batten wall in a room and now we get the chance! I am looking forward to giving Addie a more sophisticated look to her bedroom that will hopefully last for years.
We were in luck when it came to sourcing the wood pieces for the board and batten wall. My parents built a new house several years ago and their old house will soon be demolished. But before that happens we are pulling and saving any wood pieces that we can, including the old trim from the house. The trim was originally 4.5″ wide and so we used a table saw to rip each of these trim pieces in half and then sanded the finish off so that it will be ready to paint.
By reusing these old trim boards we were able to save a large amount of money and recycle wood that would have otherwise gone to be destroyed.
Once the trim boards were ripped in half they each measured 4.5″ x 1″ and we ended up cutting them to roughly 53″ in length. The reason I say roughly is because when you live in a house that is over a 100 years old nothing is ever level. So some of the boards that Justin cut were between 52″-54″. We quickly realized that the rounded trim along the floor that was already in the room was not going to work because the square of the new vertical pieces would look odd when butted against a rounded trim piece. So we ended up using the trim boards that we had not ripped in half to be the floor trim pieces.
Traditional Board & Batten
While working on this project I did a little research on traditional board and batten and how this use to be done. Traditionally board and batten was an exterior siding feature where large wood planks (or the boards) were hung and then then thinner vertical strips (the batten) was placed on top of the seams where the boards met. This helped to make the seams as airtight as they could be so that the house was protected from the winds.
One of the most popular trends to come out of home design in the last several years is doing a faux board and batten look in bedrooms, bathrooms, and entryways. In order to accomplish this we are using the existing wall as the “board” and then these ripped down trim pieces will end up being the “batten.”
After playing with the spacing of the boards I decided I liked the look of the trim pieces being 20″ apart. These were attached to the wall with brad nails. The walls in her bedroom are covered with drywall and then there is the original shiplap behind the drywall. (HERE is the original post back when we first moved in about the kids’ bedrooms)
Justin and I worked on getting these installed and then decided on the trim piece that would be horizontal over the trim. Before painting the board and batten area I used paintable caulk to fill all the seams of the trim so that no gaps would be seen once painted.
I had envisioned a muted green paint as the wallpaper that would go on the top half of the walls had some green so I wanted to tie this into the board and batten color. When I went to Home Depot with Addie she originally chose this color that was a turquoise which is currently her favorite color.
However after getting home and painting a small area I realized that the color she chose and that I thought would work was going to be way to bright. So I went back to Home Depot and was at first going to have them just tint the existing paint darker. However after talking to the man at the paint counter he told me that the original paint was tinted in a medium base and the color I wanted was a dark base so he very graciously mixed me two brand new gallons of the darker paint.
When I arrived home that day I was so excited to start painting. The walls and trim definitely needed two coats but I am excited to finish the painting (I have a small area left) and install the wallpaper next week!
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