Early in the process of our entryway renovation, we decided we really wanted to do something that made a statement. Just hanging up a new mirror and replacing some decor wasn’t going to do enough. It was an odd, lifeless space, and we wanted to breathe some life into it and really define it as the entry point of our home. I’d always wanted to do a board and batten look in a grid pattern, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. The process wound up being pretty easy, albeit slightly tedious.
You’ll need:
Tape measure
Paper and pencil
Paint and paint brushes/rollers
Miter saw
Nail gun and finish nails
Level
Step 1: Sketch it out
The first thing I did was grab measurements of the wall so I could sketch out the design. Being a graphic designer by trade, I opted to do this in Adobe Illustrator, but you could definitely do this with graph paper and a pencil! I started out by drawing my wall to scale. Then I just started playing around with different layouts of 1x4 trim boards (again to scale) to create a grid pattern. Be sure to think about how your design will interact with other trimwork in your space. On our wall, I did 1x6 trim along the base of the wall to match the baseboards in the rest of the room.
I landed on a 4x4 grid design. Our wall is almost square, but not quite, so we ended up with squares (well, rectangles) that are roughly 22x23." Depending on the size and shape of your wall, you may have to play around with different layouts to find the best option. Don't worry if you can't make perfect squares, just make sure whatever size you land on is consistent across the entire wall.
Again, being a graphic designer, I chose to take this one step further and mocked up the wall on an actual photo in photoshop. You definitely don't have to do this, but I always find it helpful to get a pre-visualization. It's also super helpful when I'm trying to sell Elle on my crazy ideas!
My design mocked up in Photoshop
Step 2: Gather materials
Now that I had my measurements in-hand, I made my list of materials. I love working with primed pine trim boards for projects like this (I always get mine at Home Depot). You could totally use regular pine boards and save a few bucks, but I've found that I like working with these primed boards much better. They've got a really smooth surface finish and they're free from sharp edges and corners. They also don't have the same issues with warping that regular pine lumber does. Plus, let's be honest. Having them pre-primed saves me time and I'm all about that!
I started by focusing on the horizontal boards. I knew that our wall was just short of 9 feet wide, so I planned on getting four 12' 1x4s and one 12' 1x6 for the base to allow for the length I needed. If you can't fit a 12' board in your car, have them cut down at your local Home Depot or Lowe's when you buy them. I always have them cut an inch or two longer than I actually need and then cut them to final size at home. The cuts they make in the store aren't always the most precise!
With the horizontal boards taken care of, I just needed the vertical pieces. Since I had the horizontal boards stretching across the entire width of the wall, I'd need to cut the vertical pieces to fit between them. The distance between the horizontal boards was roughly 23," so I just multiplied the number of vertical pieces I'd need by 23 to come up with the total length of material I'd need. I bought 8' boards and was able to get 4 23" pieces out of each of those.
Step 3: Paint
We decided that it would be easier for this project to paint everything before attaching any of the trimwork. This saved us a lot of time, since we were able to roll the whole wall and didn't have to worry about all the cut-in around the trimwork. The paint we used is Sherwin-Williams "Mount Etna" in a satin finish.
We started by laying all of our trim boards across a set of sawhorses in our garage and rolling those. Usually on trimwork, I like using high density foam rollers to get a smoother finish on the paint. But in this case, I wanted the texture on the trimwork to match the texture on the actual drywall so we wound up using regular 4" rollers.
The wall rolled. You can see we didn’t worry about cutting-in, or even being neat along the edges since it would get covered up by trim.
While those dried, we rolled the wall. We didn't worry about cutting-in since we were going to cover up the edges and corners with trim boards.
Step 4: Cut and install the trimwork
With the wall and trim boards dry, it was time to cut and attach the boards to the wall. Again, I started with the horizontal boards first and worked my way from the top of the wall to the bottom. I took measurements and cut the boards one at a time to ensure the best fit. It may be tempting to set up a stop block and cut all the boards at once to the same size. It's supposed to be a uniform grid design, after all! I don't recommend that, though. Most houses (like ours) don't have perfectly square corners and walls, so if you batch cut based on one measurement, you may wind up with a poor fitting board in a different spot on the wall. For our wall, I found that I had up to a quarter inch difference between the horizontal boards. If I had cut them all the same size, I'd have some serious gaps to cover!
I started at the top of the wall and took my horizontal measurement, cut the board to size, and then attached the board with a nail gun and finish nails, making sure to level the board with an actual level (not based on the ceiling, which is definitely not level in our house). Then, I just repeated that process as I went down the wall, making sure to keep my spacing consistent and even.
All the horizontal boards added. I forgot to grab a picture before starting the vertical boards along that far left edge.
With all the horizontal boards installed, I worked one row at a time and repeated a similar process for the vertical boards. I measured, cut, and installed each piece, making sure to use a level and speed square to ensure I had perfect, 90 degree corners.
At this point in the process, your wall should look mostly complete. From here, it's just about the finishing touches.
Step 5: Caulking and touch ups
I used spackle and filled all my nail holes. I then ran a bead of caulk all the way around the inside corners of my grid. This process can be pretty tedious, since there are so many corners in the grid design!
What you're left with is… well, a mess. On a side note, we hosted our small group Bible study at our house when we were at this point in the process. I'm pretty sure they thought we were crazy. It's hard to look past all the white splotches and that one board we forgot to paint!
This is what our wall looked like after patching holes. It doesn’t help that we had forgotten to paint one of the trim boards and ran out of paint. We also had decided to start painting our front door on a whim.
I sanded down all the spackle and then just grabbed a paint brush and touched everything up. At this point, you're pretty much finished. We added a 1x2 board along the ceiling to match what we're doing for crown molding downstairs in our house and added a piece of quarter-round along the floor to match our baseboards. We also added tiny, 1" lattice along the far right and left sides of the wall. All of that helps to cover up the gaps between the trim and the surrounding surfaces.
That's all there is to it! This could totally be a one or two-day project if you can devote the time to it. It took me about a week and a half, working a little bit here and there in the evenings.
The wall completely finished. We still need to finish some other projects in the space (crown, door frames, doors)
All-in-all, it was an easy, inexpensive project that made a huge difference in our entryway! It gives the home a much more custom look from the moment you walk in the front door. Now, it's just about the finishing touches to make the wall shine!