Simply Delilah: DIY board and batten walls

Sunday, July 24, 2011

DIY board and batten walls

Are you kidding me? You all make it seem so easy...even purchasing the boards is hard work!
I went to lowes to by the 1x2x4 and I wanted to make sure they were 4'height and they were all different. I would have to come home and cut them myself anyway so I ended up buying the 8ft long boards and cut them myself.

I positioned my saw so that when I would line the board up against the wall then that is where I would cut it..just to ensure they were all going to be the same length..

and I did measure and mark it also..I did a better job than Lowes because the other day I had them cut the wood for me cuz I just had a demo wood, so I good go home and see if that was the length that I wanted and when I gave him the wood to cut it was off by 1/2 inch he just looked at me and said "oops" in an Elmer Fudd voice.

So here they are all the same length...yes you can see that not all of them lay straight. That will be a big big problem when you try to nail them to the wall. I had no idea how difficult it was to find straight would!

And here I am taking off the existing base boards (sorry for the crappy picture).

If you cut it with a razor blade first then it will cut the paint and dap and when you try to pull it off it wont take all the paint half way up the wall.

See how clean it came off? Now I can paint it white...it was yellow. (my camera setting was off)

ok, so this was the hard part. I tried to do it on my own and it was just not working out...I could not get the boards on straight and my husband came upstairs and said it looked wonkyish? lol. So he stepped in and saved the day.

We spaced them 10" apart and made some cheat sticks..you have to use 2, one on top and one at the bottom. Oh and at first I tried to use wood glue and it just wouldn't hold so we decided not to mess around and just got liquid nails.

Now I'm exhausted, I started at 7am and we completed got everything on the walls and finished dapping around 7pm so this post will be continued...

Oh, and for those of you who don't know what look i'm going for this is it..