Do you ever feel like a room in your house is missing something? Well, we’ve always felt that way about our bedroom. It was the first room we painted when we moved in, but for some reason, it never felt finished. We painted the walls a pretty warm-toned gray (Collingwood by Benjamin Moore), the ceiling got a fresh coat of white paint, and all the trim, windows, and closet doors went from dark wood to Ultra Pure White by Behr. It was a great start, but the room still didn’t feel complete. It wasn’t until recently that we realized what our bedroom was missing – a shiplap accent wall!

What is faux shiplap?

Faux shiplap means that the shiplap you’re using isn’t real shiplap. True shiplap boards interlock with each other to create even, nickel-width gaps between the boards, and they can even be used in place of drywall. Shiplap has become very popular over the years, especially in homes with a farmhouse or coastal style. Check out this article if you want a great description about what shiplap is.

Faux shiplap boards are cut from plywood. They don’t have interlocking grooves, so you have to space them out yourself to achieve the nickel-gap look. Faux shiplap also has to be installed over drywall. On the plus side, it’s a much cheaper option if you’re looking to save money on your project.

How to make faux shiplap

To make our faux shiplap boards, we started by measuring the height and length of our wall to determine how many sheets of plywood we needed to buy. We used these 1/4 inch x 4 foot x 8 foot plywood sheets from Home Depot. We bought four sheets of plywood and asked the store to cut them down into 1-foot strips (our store doesn’t make cuts smaller than 1 foot). Shiplap boards are traditionally 6-inches wide, so we cut our boards in half at home using a circular saw and Kreg circular saw guide. (TIP: 1/4 inch boards are pretty flimsy, so we clamped two together before cutting. This gave us more stability when cutting, and fewer cuts!)

Priming the boards

First, we sanded our shiplap boards with a fine-grit sanding sponge. Once they were smooth, we vacuumed them with our Shop Vac and wiped them quickly with a tack cloth to remove any sanding dust.

We painted our shiplap boards (you can also stain them if you want!), so we started by applying primer. We rolled on one coat of this heavy-duty primer to hide the wood grain and knots. Make sure to prime the edges of the boards too, since they’ll be visible between the gaps of the shiplap boards. After priming, we did another light sanding with the sanding sponge followed by a wipe with the tack cloth.

How to prep a wall for shiplap

Before installing the faux shiplap boards, we did a few things to prepare the wall:

1. Remove the baseboard – in our case, we removed the base cap (not the entire baseboard) because our baseboards are installed behind our hardwood floors, making them SO difficult to remove. If you’re able to take off your entire baseboard, do it. Installing shiplap behind the baseboard makes it look more finished and built-in. This trim puller is great for removing trim with no damage!
   
2. Mark the studs – grab your stud finder and mark the wall studs. Nailing the shiplap boards into studs makes them stronger and more secure.
   
3. Remove outlet covers – if your wall has electrical outlets or light switches, remove the covers with a screwdriver.
   
4. Pick a starting point – it’s always a good idea to plan the layout of your shiplap boards first. Are you installing them vertically or horizontally? Are you starting at the ceiling or at the floor? We chose to do horizontal shiplap, and started at the floor, working upwards.

Installing faux shiplap

Now it’s time for the fun part – installing the shiplap! Here’s how we did it:

1. Start with a full-length board. In order to achieve a purposeful, randomized pattern, start with a full-length 8′ board. Depending on the length of your wall, continue using full-length boards until you run out of room and need to make a cut. We used our miter saw to cut our shiplap boards to length. Start the next row using the leftovers from the board you just cut, followed by full-length boards until it’s time to make another cut. Start your next row with the leftover piece again, and repeat!

2. Level each board before nailing. Grab your level and make sure the board is nice and straight before nailing it in. This is the key to a professional-looking shiplap wall!

3. Consider using wood glue. This step is optional, but we applied a squiggle of wood glue behind every shiplap board before nailing them to the wall. Wood glue plus nails is WAY stronger than nails alone. The only downside is if you ever change your mind and want to remove the shiplap boards, the wood glue will rip the drywall paper. Make sure you’re really committed to the shiplap look if you decide to use wood glue!

4. Nail the boards to the wall. Using our brad nailer, we nailed the board to the wall, hitting the wall studs that we marked whenever possible. We shot in nails every foot or so, one nail closer to the top of the board, and another closer to the bottom.

5. Paint the gaps as you go. Before installing the next row of shiplap, we painted a strip where the nickel-gap would be using the paint color that we would paint our shiplap wall. That saved us from trying to paint little tiny gaps in the end.

6. Use a jig saw for tricky cuts. The wall we shiplapped (is that a word?) had two electrical outlets, one baseboard heater, and one window. We used a jig saw when a more complex cut was needed to fit around these kind of objects.

7. Install a trim piece at the ceiling. Are your ceilings level? If they are, consider me envious because ours aren’t! When we installed our last shiplap board at the ceiling, we noticed that our ceiling was a little off, leaving us with a crooked gap between our board and the ceiling. Our quick way to fix this eyesore was installing a piece of quarter round trim over it! It covered the gap nicely and looked like an intentional extra detail.

7. Apply caulk and wood filler. Be sure to caulk all the edges (where the boards meet the ceiling, adjacent walls, window trim, etc. Also, use wood filler to fill nail holes and where two boards meet horizontally for a smooth look. These finishing details are really worth the extra time!

8. Paint! Go ahead and paint your wall whatever color you like! We chose a classic white and used Chantilly Lace by Benjamin Moore. We’ve used it several times in our house already and love tying different rooms together by reusing it.

Adding this faux shiplap accent wall to our bedroom really has made it feel like a new room. We love the coastal farmhouse look, and shiplap is a great way to achieve this style. Most importantly, it was a budget-friendly project that allowed us to learn new skills, and we may or may not have plenty of leftover shiplap for future projects!