Board & Batten Gorgeousness: A Tutorial

Definitely one of the things that drew hubby and I to our house was the fact that it was a blank slate. The house was neutral and "clean looking", and the color scheme was something that we could live with while we went through the process of adding our personal touches. To top it off, it had some nice updates taken care of-- granite countertops, soft close cabinets, brand new carpeting, remodeled bathrooms and updated fixtures. The house had great bones, no doubt, but it was totally lacking character. 

One of the first projects on my quest to inject personality into our home was tackling the dining room. But with so many decisions to be made, I had no clue where to start.  So I did what any good Handy Homemaker does, and took to Pinterest for some inspiration. I quickly found that I was drawn to rich moldings and trim work. In particular, for our dining room, I loved the look of board and batten walls. I read a few tutorials from fellow bloggers, took bits and pieces, and implemented some strategies of my own to create this tutorial. 

Now because I'm a visual learner, let's start with a before and after picture, shall we?

Look at these walls... just LOOK at them!! Aren't they gorgeous?! I could not be happier with how this project came out; and the best part is, it was CHEAP and stupidly EASY. 

I did this project almost 100% without help from the hubs, which is a testament to just how easy it was.  Now that I'm done tooting my own horn (Toot! Toot!) let's dive in to the tutorial.

Board & Batten Wall Tutorial

1. PLAN IT OUT
The best place to start, as with many projects, is with a plan. And you have a few decisions to make when formulating your plan. 

• For starters, you need to decide how tall you want your battens to be-- I wanted our complete board and batten look to take up 3/4 of our wall. With an 8 foot wall, 6 feet were taken up with the board/battens. 

• You're also going to need to decide how wide you want your battens to be. I chose to do 3" battens. This decision was based partly on the look and partly on making the "spacing math" easier. Keepin' things simple, people.

• Then it's time to do some math and draw up a diagram. This is going to require some measuring and graph paper. Here's my schematic, for your reference, but as far as the math lesson goes, there are lots of great tutorials out there on spacing. The one I referenced was from Remodelaholic. She breaks it down perfectly!

2. GRAB THE GOODS

Armed with a solid plan, I went to our local Home Depot for lumber. We chose to go with regular ol' plywood that was 1/4" thick. We picked up an 8 foot board and the nice man at HD ripped the board for us into 3" strips. I was hopeful that we would only need one piece of plywood for our entire room, but we ended up being THREE strips short, and had to buy another piece of plywood to finish the room.... <<frustrated sigh>>. Oh well, you honestly can never have too much plywood on hand! ;)

3. CUT & SAND

When you get your battens home, it's time to cut them to length (in our case, we cut each batten to approx. 5'7" in length). Then sand, sand, and sand some more. If you're like me, you'll be anxious to get the battens up on the wall. But to achieve a polished, high-end look you want your strips to be smooth! So take your time with this step.

Please excuse our super messy garage...!

4. BATTEN'S UP!
Now... up they go! I laid the horizontal batten first. I measured from the top of our baseboard to the correct height, then nailed the batten loosely in place, making sure everything was level before nailing in completely. You will use a level a LOT with this tutorial... there's nothing worse than crooked battens.  

Side note: We didn't have a nail gun, and chose to use a (sweat-producing and headache causing) hammer. A nail gun would make this project much easier and go a lot faster. But we decided to save our $100 and use the tools we had. So hammer it was! 

5. UP SOME MORE...

With your horizontal batten in place, it will serve as a proper guide and will make the vertical battens go up nice and easily. Several nails and lots of patience later... a wall was done! Yippee- progress!

6. START EACH WALL NEW

Continue around your room until all of your horizontal and vertical battens are in place. 

• I started each wall "new"... meaning, I placed a vertical batten at the beginning and end of each wall.  I started the measured spacing over again on that new wall. I liked the way it made the corners look finished and polished. 

7. PAINT COMES FIRST

Once your battens are up, it's time to paint. Yes, paint. Not caulk, not spackle. Paint.  I chose to paint first to see how good the coverage was. Sometimes paint does amazing things on it's own, and no serious caulking or spackling is required. So I started with a thin coat of paint and then reassessed from there. The less spackling and caulking I need to do the better!

Did I mention that I do projects in attractive outfits? ;)

8. FINE-TUNING MAKES THE DIFFERENCE

Now it's time to fine-tune everything. I applied caulk to the corners and where the battens met the walls, to fill in all of the cracks and gaps. Then I applied spackle over the nail holes and sanded it over to smooth everything out. It really made everything look polished and professional.

9. MORE PAINT

Next I applied two more coats of paint over the board and battens, then painted the top two feet of the wall Benjamin Moore's Shenandoah Taupe. 

And voila! My dining room is (nearly) complete. For less than $75 and a little bit of elbow grease, I think the room came out pretty fabulous! 

Swoon!!

Until next time Homesteaders...