What a wild time, quarantine! Instead of staying inside, cooped up with nothing to do, we decided to tackle some house projects we had always planned on. We remodeled our entire home two years ago, including the kitchen, floors, carpet, basement, bathrooms, EVERYTHING. What was missing were our final touches that add detail and charm. So, we made the most of our free time on quarantine to show you some of these final touches.
For our first project, we decided to add charm to our master bedroom by adding a feature waIl by using a board and batten technique. In this post, I’ll walk you through the process of building one in your home.
Step 1: Math
First, using math, we had to layout the wall how we wanted it to look. First on paper with the help of Hardhat Holden (wall comes later). I took the height of the wall, subtracted the number of strips we wanted and multiplied this by their height. Then, I divided this by the number of boxes to get the height of each box. Whew. Rounding up we settled on squares, roughly 20” x 20” (don’t worry if one is a little bigger than the other).
Step 2: Not math: Shopping!
Here is a list of materials we needed for this project. I brought my favorite sidekicks to Home Depot to grab these supplies. I used my layout from Step 1 to figure out how much 1’ x 2’ MDF I would need to purchase.
Materials:
*1’ x 2’ pre primed MDF strips
*Paintable caulk
*Wood filler
*1.5” 18 gauge brad nails
*Painters tool
*Sandpaper
*Pencil
*Baby wipes (more on this later)
*4” foam rollers
*1.5” paint brush
*Paint and primer (we already had this)
Tools:
*Cordless Ryobi brad nailer
*Rigid miter saw
*Utility knife
Step 3: Transfer layout from paper to wall
In this step, mark the locations of the MDF strips on the wall to ensure it’s laid out properly before starting. Measure twice, cut once!
Step 4: Set up a Perimeter
Make a perimeter around the wall with the longer pieces of MDF to frame the wall for what’s to come. I had to make a few mitered cuts because the boards didn’t span the entire wall. They weren’t perfect, but that’s what wood filler is for! Bonus tip: Don’t worry about finding studs when measuring or installing – the sheetrock holds them just fine!
Step 5: Let’s Get Vertical
Next, install the vertical strips. We measured four vertical squares and 6 horizontal ones for this feature wall.
Step 6: Let’s Get Horizontal...MDF strips, that is
The last step of installation is attaching the horizontal strips. I had to cut them to make each box the perfect height.
Step 7: Painting & Caulking
Once I had installed all the horizontal strips, the wall was ready to be prepped for painting! We filled the larger gaps and the nail holes with wood filler. Once that had dried, we used progressively higher grit sandpaper to sand all of the spots smooth and then it was time for caulking.
Our big trick for caulking came after we had kids. We had tried wiping with a finger, with a sponge, even the back of a spoon (what?!), when we discovered the trick: BABY WIPES! Now we apply the caulk, wrap a baby wipe around our finger and get perfect edges.
Step 8: Priming & Painting
Once the caulk was dry, it was primin’ time! We applied one coat of primer (the sheetrock was grey, but one coat worked just fine) and two coats of paint and the project was complete!
We thought it looked pretty good before...
but we think it looks just a little better now.
What do you think? Let us know how your project goes!
What a wild time, quarantine! Instead of staying inside, cooped up with nothing to do, we decided to tackle some house projects we had always planned on. We remodeled our entire home two years ago, including the kitchen, floors, carpet, basement, bathrooms, EVERYTHING. What was missing were our final touches that add detail and charm. So, we made the most of our free time on quarantine to show you some of these final touches.
For our first project, we decided to add charm to our master bedroom by adding a feature waIl by using a board and batten technique. In this post, I’ll walk you through the process of building one in your home.
Step 1: Math
First, using math, we had to layout the wall how we wanted it to look. First on paper with the help of Hardhat Holden (wall comes later). I took the height of the wall, subtracted the number of strips we wanted and multiplied this by their height. Then, I divided this by the number of boxes to get the height of each box. Whew. Rounding up we settled on squares, roughly 20” x 20” (don’t worry if one is a little bigger than the other).
Step 2: Not math: Shopping!
Here is a list of materials we needed for this project. I brought my favorite sidekicks to Home Depot to grab these supplies. I used my layout from Step 1 to figure out how much 1’ x 2’ MDF I would need to purchase.
Materials:
*1’ x 2’ pre primed MDF strips
*Paintable caulk
*Wood filler
*1.5” 18 gauge brad nails
*Painters tool
*Sandpaper
*Pencil
*Baby wipes (more on this later)
*4” foam rollers
*1.5” paint brush
*Paint and primer (we already had this)
Tools:
*Cordless Ryobi brad nailer
*Rigid miter saw
*Utility knife
Step 3: Transfer layout from paper to wall
In this step, mark the locations of the MDF strips on the wall to ensure it’s laid out properly before starting. Measure twice, cut once!
Step 4: Set up a Perimeter
Make a perimeter around the wall with the longer pieces of MDF to frame the wall for what’s to come. I had to make a few mitered cuts because the boards didn’t span the entire wall. They weren’t perfect, but that’s what wood filler is for! Bonus tip: Don’t worry about finding studs when measuring or installing – the sheetrock holds them just fine!
Step 5: Let’s Get Vertical
Next, install the vertical strips. We measured four vertical squares and 6 horizontal ones for this feature wall.
Step 6: Let’s Get Horizontal...MDF strips, that is
The last step of installation is attaching the horizontal strips. I had to cut them to make each box the perfect height.
Step 7: Painting & Caulking
Once I had installed all the horizontal strips, the wall was ready to be prepped for painting! We filled the larger gaps and the nail holes with wood filler. Once that had dried, we used progressively higher grit sandpaper to sand all of the spots smooth and then it was time for caulking.
Our big trick for caulking came after we had kids. We had tried wiping with a finger, with a sponge, even the back of a spoon (what?!), when we discovered the trick: BABY WIPES! Now we apply the caulk, wrap a baby wipe around our finger and get perfect edges.
Step 8: Priming & Painting
Once the caulk was dry, it was primin’ time! We applied one coat of primer (the sheetrock was grey, but one coat worked just fine) and two coats of paint and the project was complete!
We thought it looked pretty good before...
but we think it looks just a little better now.
What do you think? Let us know how your project goes!