Elements of design: LINE
Love the trend of Board and batten? Think of creative ways to add it to your home!
Board and batten is an old trend made new again in 2021 and it not slowing down in 2022! Board and batten is coming a live again with the modern traditional style, having a modern take on old beautiful architectural designs. I, personally, love the board and batten trend because of how it incorporates lines into a space, creating vertical visual interest. Now there are many different ways to do board and batten, from boxes, to vertical lines (like pictured) to even a more abstract design. Regardless of the design you choose, I think they are a great way to have a interesting feature wall.
In August 2021 I gave birth to our first born, and before her arrival wanted to make a fun colorful room for baby. I don’t naturally gravitate towards a ton of color in my space so opted for my favorite color- green (and its gender neutral). We decided to do a board and batten wall as the feature wall because it was so much more affordable than wallpaper. Below are step by step instructions on how we made the wall.
From an interior design standpoint, the project was a major success. Not only did we update the space and bring more value to the house, but we created a practical space with the small shelf to hold the baby monitor and small trinkets. The colors brought depth to the otherwise dull room, and the board brought visual interested with the vertical lines created bringing the eyes up.
If you want to do a simple yet effective DIY to a room consider a board and batten wall.
Measure and plan
We began with measuring the width of the room (11ft 2in) and figuring out the distance we wanted for each board. My carpenter husband figured out all the math for this project, but if you have a similar sized room hopefully this will help. Since the room was 11.2 feet wide he figured each board to be about 3.25 inches wide to have 8 boards 19 inches apart (he figured this for the spacing I wanted while avoiding the outlets).
Buy your supplies and cut
We decided to use MDF for each board instead of actual wood, but for the top shelf portion we bought two 1X4 12 footers of wood. I wanted it to be about 5 feet tall, so that we could have a shelf on the top portion. Since we have large baseboards (5.5 inches) and to account for the shelf at the top, my husband figured each board would be 4feet 1 inch tall. We really didn’t want to remove the baseboard so Andrew (my husband) cut each board’s bottom at a 45 degree angle, but not completely (see picture) so that it would line up nicely with the baseboard.
3. Assemble
We started with a board on each side of the wall to “frame in” the accent wall. And went from there. Since Andrew had already figured out the distances it was easy to put up. We used a small brad nail gun and put up each MDF vertical piece before moving on to the horizontal wood at the top. Andrew cut both the wood pieces to fit the wall perfectly, then also used the nail gun to put those on.
4. Caulk and paint
We caulked each crevice of the wall to make it all look like one piece together. After that I chose a color for the wall and we began painting. The color I chose is called Tangle by Color Journeys (a great Canadian brand). After three coats of paint we added finishing touches and the room was ready for baby girls arrival!
