Before we found out we were having a boy I didn’t look too much into nursery ideas, because there are just SO MANY out there. I figured it would be easier to wait until we knew the gender so I could at least narrow it down in that way. Once we found out we were having a boy the search was on! I know I wanted an accent wall, and I also knew I didn’t want a traditional “nursery theme”. I wanted something that could stay even as he got older, and really wanted to stick with more of a color scheme than a theme. Finally after some time we decided to go with a partial board and batten wall. My in-laws and husband made all my dreams come true creating this wall! Also honorable mention to my mom, aunt, grandma, and brother Cole who helped do a little painting in the room!
This is the final product of the wall, and I think it turned out so perfect! Below is a breakdown of everything we used, and the steps we took to get the wall up!
For starters I will also include that this wall is ROUGHLY 13ft long, and our ceilings are about 8’9”. This could change the height you want your boards!
Paint: all three walls are painted Snowbound by Sherwin Williams in a matte finish. The top of the accent wall is Woodland Lichen by Sherwin Williams also in matte.
**disclaimer: since we have highly textured walls we did not do a faux board and batten where you only add the batten portion to the wall. Since the wall would be white we were worried the texture would come through too much. IF the texture doesn’t bother you then it’s way less material and time and you can just got out the whole first portion of these steps.
Items needed:
- 3 sheets of RevolutionPly 5mm x 4-ft x 8-ft Poplar Sanded Plywood
- We had these cut at Lowes to be 51” tall and left the width at 4 feet
- These are not needed if you don’t mind the textured walls!
- 2 1×4 in 12ft long pieces
- 1 1×4 in 4ft piece
- 11 1×2 51” tall (we actually found a special board that was slightly thinner than a 1×2 because addin the plywood would have made these stick out further than out baseboards which we didn’t want
- Nail gun
- Caulk / Caulk gun
- Wood Filler
- Adhesive (if you are going to add plywood)
- Sandpaper
Steps:
Step 1:
Our first step was to apply the plywood to the wall. We did this with the adhesive and then once it was on the wall used the nail gun and attached it to the studs. This took 3 full sheets and then one that we had to cut down because of the wall length.
Step 2:
After the plywood was up on the wall we took our first 1×4 that was 12’ long we added this on top of the plywood, as in above not attached to the plywood. Because our wall is longer than 12 feet we used the smaller 1×4 to cut down to finish out the wall. We added this piece in the back corner so the seam would be less noticeable. NOTE: we made sure this piece was completely level before attaching to the wall. (we used 2” long nails in the nail cun to attach to the studs). We did notice some spacing between the plywood and this piece because the wall wasn’t complete square, but we will address this later. It is MORE important for the top 1×4 to be level for when the shelf is added later.
Step 3:
Once our top piece was added it was time to attach the batten. These were also cut to 51” to match the board behind it. If you want it to be perfect I would take each board up at a time and measure them individually. Like I mentioned above we learned our wall wasn’t completely square so even though each one was cut the same length some had bigger gaps than others at the bottom where they met the baseboard. We decided to go with each piece being 16” apart. We did this to 1 cover the seams of the boards (which isn’t necessary if you don’t do the board), also because since we went with a thinner board that is slightly wider than a 1×2 doing them the original 12” apart like we wanted (which would also still cover your seams) looked way too crowded. Below I can show the 3 distance options we looked at that would cover the seams. We attached these by nail gun as well and used the level on each one to make sure they were completely straight up and down.
Step 4:
Once all these pieces were up it was a little tedious work. We took the wood filler and covered each of the nail holes on the wood trim and boards. Once this dried we took our sandpaper and sanded it down to make the wood completely smooth.
Step 5:
PAINTING, this actually didn’t take us too long with 4 people painting, but also made it hard to keep track of where we started and when we could do a second coat. We used 12”roller brushes on the boards and then a 1” brush to paint the trim pieces, but we went over them while they were wet with the roller to make sure it all had the same look!
Step 6:
Once all the paint was dry we were able to see what areas needed another coat or what was missed and we did a second coat. After that it was time to address some of those gaps I mentioned earlier. We used caulk to fill them in and it looked professional after that! After the caulk was added there were again some additional paint touch ups that needed to be done.
Step 7:
Last but not least we added our top shelf. This is a 12ft long 1×4 that we stained in dark walnut. If you are planning on ever putting anything liquid on this shelf I would recommend sealing it as well. Again, we did have to add an additional piece in the far corner of the room to make it the full wall. We placed this on top of the other 1×4 but this time the 1” side against the wall. We then used the nail cut to nail it down into the 1×4 below it.
After that there were just some last minute touch ups that needed to be made where the nail gun made some knicks and the wall was completed!!
Let me know if you decide to do a board and batten in your home, or if you have any questions!!