Today I want to share with you this super easy project I did with the help of my husband in one Saturday afternoon.

I wanted to add a special touch to my dining room wall, since my house is already too neutral with grays and whites all around. As always, we were on a low budget, and this time I didn’t have the energy to tackle another shiplap project.

The walls looked like this before. Ok, light in the picture is pretty bad. The actual color is light gray, but you get the idea.

I made a video tutorial of the whole process in case you are like me and need to see some action in order to learn.

As you can see in the “before” picture, besides the baseboard, the room also had a chair rail about 30″ above the floor (by the way, I just found out that the trim in the middle of the wall is called “chair rail” so allow me to show off my vast home decor terminology). So, if your wall doesn’t have it, you will need to add one.

First thing I did was to paint the bottom area of the walls white. I used the leftover Behr paint (New House White) I had from other projects.

At Home Depot, I bought 28 of these little pieces of wood at $1.96 each. I don’t know what they are called, but they measure 4’L by 1 1/2″W and are just about 1/4″thick. You can find them in the Lumber Section, where all crown moldings and door/window trim are.

I cut all pieces down to 30″ long, which was the distance between the top of my baseboard and the bottom of my chair rail.

Next I sanded them thoroughly with a 220 grit sandpaper.

I wiped off the dust with a damp cloth then painted them the same color of the bottom section of the walls. I used my HomeRight Paint Sprayer to save time, but you can roll or brush the paint if you prefer.

I measured and marked with a pencil the distance I wanted between the “stripes”. I decided to leave 14″ between them, but this is totally up to you. Make sure to avoid landing right above an outlet. That is why it is helpful to plan where each board will go beforehand.

Once I had all marks, I started nailing the wood pieces to the wall with a nail gun. To make sure they were straight, I used this practical level that came with the stud finder  we got from Amazon.

Three nails (top, middle, bottom) were enough to attach each piece firmly to the wall.

To finish it up, I patched the nail holes with a bit of spackle, then light sanded and touched up the paint on those spots using a small brush (you can see how I did that in the video tutorial).

And here are the “after” pictures.

My idea for this project was inspired on this bedroom makeover by one of my favorite bloggers, Danielle, from Finding Silver Pennies. Actually, hers is the real deal board and batten, from top to bottom. Check out the amazing result on her blog.

For now, with my limited skills, I am happy with the light version we were able to create in our dining room.

I’m sharing this post on these awesome link parties!

Sweet Inspiration

Silver Pennies Sunday Link Party 

That DIY Party

Make it Pretty Monday

To Grandma’s House we go!

Thanks for reading!

 

Patricia.