New Year, new project! Happy 2021 everyone. We’re starting out the new year by taking on a fun project that we’ve been talking about doing since the summer: making a board and batten accent wall in our office. And since we like to be transparent, you should know that this is our first woodworking project. Besides replacing a rotten stair riser for our deck, we don’t have much experience in the woodworking department. This is The Modest Makeover, remember?
Before diving in, we researched and read lots of DIY board and batten tutorials from other blogs. And watched a lot of TikTok videos. Ultimately, we landed on this tutorial from Young House Love as the one we wanted to follow. We liked how they added base cap moulding to their board and batten to give it a “fancier” look. Since this would be an accent wall in our office room, we wanted our wall treatment to look upscale.
So, we drew a rough sketch of how we wanted our board and batten layout to look, took measurements of the wall, and headed to Home Depot to buy our materials. Here’s a list of what we used to make our board and batten accent wall:
Materials
- Primed 8-foot 1×4” pine boards
- Primed 8-foot pine base cap moulding
- Wood glue (apply some to the back of each piece of wood before nailing for a stronger bond)
- Nail gun
- 2” nails for nail gun
- Miter saw
- Studfinder
- Level
- Measuring tape
- Crowbar (to remove old baseboard)
- Wood filler
- Sanding block
- Caulk
- Caulk gun
I should also mention that we were able to buy the nail gun and miter saw thanks to the extreme generosity of our families this past Christmas. You could definitely cut the wood and hammer in the nails by hand, but let’s just say that we used 60+ nails for this one wall and made lots of wood cuts. Power tools are great and really speed things along if you have the budget for them!
Prepping the wall
First, let me say that our “board & batten” wall isn’t truly board and batten. Traditional board and batten uses backer board with wood battens installed over it. The walls in our house are already smooth and not textured, so we skipped the step of adding backer board, and just went straight to the “battens.” Why do extra work if it’s not needed?
To prepare our wall, the first things we needed to do was 1) remove the existing baseboard, and 2) find the studs in the wall. Although we wanted to keep our current baseboard (it was perfectly fine), it was only 1/2 inch wide, whereas our new boards were 3/4 inch wide and would have stuck out in a weird way. So, we took off the baseboard, and had one of those moments of DIY panic where you ask yourself why you’re making a mess of your house. Don’t worry, every project looks worse before it looks better!
Then, we used our studfinder and marked the wall studs. We used little pieces of painter’s tape, which are easy to remove down the line. It goes without saying that it’s always more secure to nail into studs vs. drywall whenever possible. This step was more to help us when nailing in the horizontal boards, since the vertical boards wouldn’t always line up with studs.
Installing the board & batten
Next, we worked on constructing the ‘outer box’ of the wall. We started with the crown and baseboard pieces that ran across the ceiling and floor. You’ll want to install these pieces first, and make them the full length of the wall. We installed the outer left and right vertical boards first to complete our ‘outer box,’ then marked the dead center of the wall and installed our next vertical board there. At this point, our wall looked like two big rectangles.
We marked the center of each big rectangle, and installed our final two vertical boards. This divided our wall into four rectangles, which was just the right balance of making the wall interesting without being too busy. Every wall is different, so just hold up boards and step back to see what will look good for yours!
Now, it was time to add the horizontal boards. Based on our original drawing, our horizontal board was supposed to be at chair rail height. But, we ended up changing our minds after seeing how it looked in-person, and considering the desk & loveseat in the room would block us from seeing the chair rail. We chose to place the horizonal board higher up on the wall, which gave us the added bonus of making the wall look taller by drawing our eye upward!
Adding basecap moulding
With our board and batten installed, our office accent wall was looking transformed already. And honestly, we could have kept the look simple and ended the woodworking here if we wanted to. What really drew us to this project, though, was the way the addition of the basecap moulding gave everything an elevated look. So, we framed out each of our boxes with basecap moulding, and we’re so glad we did!
This was definitely the trickier part of the project. Using our miter saw, we made all of our cuts for the moulding pieces at 45-degrees. That way, the corners would meet seamlessly, like a picture frame. Once you get the hang of which way to make the cuts, it all comes together pretty quickly. We messed up a couple of cuts at first, but that’s why you always buy more wood than you think you’ll need!
Prepping & painting
With all of our wood up, it was time to work on the finishing details. Here are the steps we took to give our wall a polished, professional finish:
- Fill all nail holes with wood filler (wood filler shrinks, so overfill the holes).
- When the wood filler dries, sand it smooth with a sanding block.
- Vacuum up the dust from sanding, and wipe off the wood and the wall with a tack cloth or a damp rag.
- Caulk ALL the edges and seams (inside and outside of each rectangle, where the wood meets the ceiling and wall, where one piece of wood meets another, etc.) This is the most important step for a professional look!
- Paint your wall. We painted all of the wood Ultra Pure White by Behr, and left the wall it’s original color for contrast: Maui Mist by Behr. Use a mini foam roller to paint the flat boards, and a paintbrush for the moulding pieces and cutting in.
- Step back and admire your fancy board and batten accent wall!
The pictures below show just how big of an impact caulking had. On the left, all of the nail holes and seams were filled and sanded, and on the right is after caulking. See how all the dark gaps disappeared?
Finally, here’s a look at our office wall before and after! Doesn’t the board and batten add interest and make the wall feel bigger? Overall, we’re so glad that we took on this project as our first attempt at woodworking. We learned so much along the way, and I’d definitely call it beginner-level for those who want to give it a try, too! Cheers to our first project of 2021.
