DIY Board and Batten // Learn How to Measure
Hey friends! I did another board and batten wall and I am obsessed with this style! I’ve always wanted shiplap on my big wall in my living room but now I’m rethinking this! It’s a little less formal than other styles, and gives it more of an old cottage farmhouse feel, in my opinion. Read below to learn how to DIY this yourself!
Of course I didn’t take any photos as I was doing this but it is very straight forward. The hardest part is measuring which is actually pretty easy with this formula:
Number of battens x width of battens.
Subtract your answer from the width of your wall.
Take your new answer and divide that by how many spaces you’ll have between battens.
This ensures even spacing without the headache!
Tips: You could put tape on the wall to help you visualize how many battens will look good! For this style, the battens are 1.5” wide (1x2 is actually 3/4x1 1/2), so make sure you have the correct measurements of your battens. If you come up with a weird measurement like 10.83, you know it’s bigger than 10 3/4 so I will adjust each batten by an eight or sixteenth on my tape measure until it looks good to the eye.
I did not glue these to the wall before nailing them with a nail gun. It’s held up well, especially being that not all of the battens hit studs. If you don’t have a nail gun, a hammer and trim nails will work just fine. A speed square or level will help ensure your battens are going up straight and square. Hold it down low while you nail in the bottom half and hold it up high while you nail in the top half. Fill your nail holes with drydex, sand when dry, caulk all of your edges and paint!
I chose to do Alabaster by Sherwin Williams on this wall. Originally I was going to do just white, but being that this is on the north side of the house, the light is cooler and the warmer undertones of Alabster was exactly what this room needed! Granted this was a small wall, but the primed 1x2x8 battens only cost me $25!
I got these four square frames from TJMaxx. I love looking through old photographs so I found pictures of my husband and I when we were kids and had them blown up from a 3x4 (or something… totally dating ourselves right now) to 4x4 I think. The quality isn’t something to rave about (also not terrible!), but that doesn’t matter when they’re good memories!
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