As you know, my sweet husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I told him either laser hair removal or to redo the dining room. I finally decided vanity would have to wait and the dining room was going to get my makeover. I had seen several rooms online that I liked that had board and batten. So Philip (the analytical one) did a bunch of research and watched several "you tube" videos on how to install board and batten and before we knew it we were at Lowe's (for our FIRST trip) buying supplies.
We decided to spend the extra money and purchase primed wood. One of the best decisions ever. Then Philip borrowed a nail gun from a friend at church and a miter saw from my dad... and we were in business.
The first step that we did was decide at what proportion we would split the room. A design rule that i learned in college is that you never want to cut a room in half. So thirds are much better. We decided that 72 inches off the ground would work and then we put painter's tape up to be sure. The next couple of days were spent painting. I found a red color that I loved and so I painted that on the top 1/3. Then I found a white paint that was a bit shinier and painted it on the bottom 2/3.
Thank goodness for that drop cloth. It kind of looks like a crime scene (or is it just me who watches too much Law and Order?)
After several coats of paint we started by adding moulding around our windows. We figured that it would look funny having the boards hitting the windows without it so we splurged for some extra trim. Philip mastered the mitered cuts while putting up this stage of moulding. And honestly we think the trim around the windows made the biggest difference (now I want to add it to all of our windows...baby steps). Then Philip started putting up the header boards. We bought 6" slats to be the header and an additional moulding to add on top of it. Philip mitered all the corners at a 45 degree angle (hard work but he did great).
Then came the hardest task-trying to figure out the spacing of the vertical slats. Our goal was to space it out well so that none of the slats would hit an electrical outlet. Now I am sure there is some sort of math formula that would have made this process easier, but math has never really been my thing. So we started taping it off with painter's tape. We would make it about half way around the room and bam, we'd hit an outlet. So then you would have to start over and move everything over an inch. After about three times of doing this I had a genious idea. I would do an architectural drawing and space it out. I was so happy that I was going to be able to contribute. Then it came time to apply the boards. And about three boards in we hit an outlet. I couldn't believe it. Then Philip explained to me that the boards were called 1x4 but they were actually only 1x 3 1/2. Big WHOOPS! So that is when we decided to fly by the seat of our pants. We had to fudge a half inch here and there but I don't think anyone would ever notice. (side note: we/Philip also had to cut the bottom of the vertical slats at a 45 degree angle to hit flush with the base boards).
After all the vertical slats were put up we went back and put in the second row of horizontal slats. This is when we started getting super excited. The second row of slats were the icing on the cake. This step went pretty fast.
Then we went back and calked all the gaps and filled the nail holes. We went back and sanded everything down to make sure that everything was super smooth.
The final step was to go back and put two more coats of white paint on the wall and slats.
Here are the before pics:
And the final after pics:
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