DIY Board and Batten Tutorial

So, the dining room walls are finished!! I showed you the reveal a few weeks back (yes, WEEKS!). Man, I've been slacking BIG TIME on the blog.

Today I am going to show you how we transformed the space with a board & batten treatment.

We started with a space that looked like this...


The first thing I did was measure up about 5' on the wall and primed the bottom section.

It's amazing how different the room looks from night to day.

Once the priming was done we painted the wall white (in a semi-gloss finish).

Next, after using a chalk line to make sure we had a level mark all around the room (5' up) we nailed on a 1 x 4 on every wall for the top of the board & batten.



We had a few "issues" on my measurements but it was nothing that a few RREEAALLY tiny cuts couldn't fix. Yes, I am proud of those tiny cuts.

I then took blue painters tape to mark where I thought my vertical 1x4s would go. This gave me a good idea as to how many cuts I needed to make. You'll decide on how far apart each vertical board will be. Usually it depends on outlets, switches and other things you have to work around on your wall. Mine ended up being about 13".



I set up all the boards in my garage to prime them. I suggest priming before you nail onto the walls because you'll have to do that anyway (unless you purchase primed MDF). We used unprimed pine 1x4. This will save you time later. We lined them up close enough to use a roller to cover 2-3 at a time and then I went along with a brush to get the edges. My husband and I did this part together so I could do the edges while he rolled.


Once I determined how far apart my vertical pieces would be I cut 13" long pieces of the same 1x4s to use as my guides for spacing (and to be the second horizontal strip going around the room).

We used another chalkline to mark 13" down (to make a perfect square) for the second horizontal strip. Tip: We installed the vertical piece and the 13" horizontal piece at the same time using the 13" piece as my spacers (one up top and one down by the baseboard. Some people prefer to do the vertical piece all around the room FIRST and then going back and installing the horizontal piece. We decided that if we used the 13" piece as our spacer every time then we wouldn't have any 'oops' moments where the space between two vertical pieces were either too narrow or too wide for the horizontal piece.



Working around the room we eventually ran into an area where an outlet was going to be in the way. Don't panic!! Just get out your jig saw and measure how far up and wide the outlet will infringe on the 1x4 and cut a notch for it.

Don't you just love my professional set up I've got going on?! HA!

I have to say I've did a happy dance when it actually worked as planned!

After finishing up all the boards on the walls, we went around the top and nailed on a 1x2 for a ledge.



We finished up by doing a fresh coat of paint in almost the same color on the top portion (even thought that wasn't intended!).


I brought back the table, chairs and a new rug into the room. I'm still on the hunt for a piece of furniture for the back wall. We're getting new blinds (YIPPEE!) and then I'll work on curtains to bring in some color.

I know the piece that I want so badly for this room. It matches my table and I wanted it 3 years ago when I got the table and chairs but we passed it up to save money and got a cheaper one. Now to my utter disappointment... it's DISCONTINUED! So, if anyone has THIS...


Sell it to me! :)

I want it sooo bad! Until then... Here are the results.