$31 Board and Batten Complete!

Little boy room is finally done. My hubby has been out of town all week… imagine the surprise! That is, if he notices (honestly sometimes he doesn’t.) This morning some neighbors were here before school and one boy walked in the room and said, “Wow! This is amazing! It looks just like my cousins house… they have like a REALLY nice mobile home.”  Maybe it was the exhaustion that made it so funny, but mobile home isn’t exactly the look I was going for. Here is the before and after:

I am so excited about it, and so is my little guy. Straight up I will tell you that the caulk and paint literally took me forever, but between Ted Talks and Pandora we made it through. Let’s get down to the minutiae:

Materials:

1. Bender boards (screaming deal, I blogged about them here)
2. Level
3. Mitre saw
4. Sander
5. Paintable caulk and caulk gun
6. Brad nailer & nails
7. Stud finder
8. Wash cloths
9. Paint primer
10. Paint, drop cloths, brush

This project cost me $31 for the bender board. I already had the paint, tools and other supplies. Still a bargain for sure. After gathering supplies here’s where I began:

1. If you’re using cheap bender boards (like me) you will have to sand the heck out of them. I used those boards mostly for the 1/4 depth that worked with my baseboards. (They are not by lumber, they are in the garden section!) But note: if you’re looking for super crisp and clean, bender boards might not be for you. Even after sanding  and painting the boards look a little rough. I like the look because my walls are textured and they work, but just a heads up on that…

2. I skipped the next part which is applying a board. I put the vertical boards directly on the wall. Yep, this is total cheater pants. But it can work. If you want to skip this part but you want smooth even though you have textured walls you do have an option… sanding your wall texture off. You have to be pretty committed of course because it will take time and there’s not turning back.

3. I cut all the vertical pieces to the same height and applied those first. For the boards that end by a window cut the end at a 45 degree angle.

Use a level ALWAYS to make sure you get the boards straight. I put my vertical pieces 16″ apart. The easiest way is mark them out is to cut a scrap board to the spacing you want  (a shim), in this case 16″, and use it to mark your boards, that way you don’t have to measure a million times and your spacing will be awesome:

So, measure, use the level, brad nail, repeat. By the way check out what was behind the bed when I pulled it away from the wall… nice little one, he’s totally eating candy at night!

4. After the vertical boards are on use a stud finder to mark the studs, then use your level and attach the horizontal board with the brad nailer, making sure you nail into the studs:

Here’s my little stud (finder)

6. Once the boards are on it’s time to tape off, prime raw boards and caulk. If you are using pre-primed boards, just tape and caulk. To caulk simply put a small line of caulk everywhere the wood connects to each other and/or the wall and then wipe with your finger or a washcloth.  Actually let’s just take “simply” from that sentence. This actually takes a while. (I was taught to use my finger, but I think a washcloth is faster, I am going to do a post on this next week because I get asked about this a lot).

7. Okay, almost done! Now it’s painting time. I used left over paint from when we gave our house an overhaul, it’s “Divine White” lightened 75%: The great part for me is the walls will be the same color as the trim, so less taping off for me!

You will need a roller and a paint brush to get all the corners. If you’re wondering if you should use a spray gun, check out this post. Painting took a while. I read other blogs that said to paint boards before putting them up, now I see the wisdom in that.

Here are some more after shots of the room:

The room still needs some help, but this board and batten makes a huge difference (if you’re wondering about the word sign you can find it here.)

Happy Friday and Happy Creating everyone!