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Sometimes you gotta take two steps back before taking one step forward, right?! In terms of our board and batten dining room… it looks like that is very much the case.
Like I mentioned last week, this previously neglected room needed a little time in the DIY beauty shop for it to eventually become the light, bright, and less “matchy-matchy” space I envisioned. BUT before any big “reveal” comes work…. lots and lots of WORK. <– which is where we are today.
Board and Batten Dining Room
My AH-MAZING dad (and favorite weekend warrior partner) came over last weekend to help me translate my inspiration into a reality. <– gotta love dads! He brought the muscle and the brain power, I brought the donuts, the consistent positive reinforcement, and LOTS of questions. One day I hope to be able to tackle these hardcore DIY projects (like this board & batten) alone, but for now, this rookie still needs a coach her dad.
The first thing I did to prep for our weekend work marathon was measure the space, sketch out the “look”, and then roughly outlined the design using painter’s tape. This helped me nail down exactly how much material we needed to pick up on Friday night.
Side Note: Sorry for the crazy colors and terrible quality of some of these photos. While working, it was hard to stop and remember to take photos (eek.. bad blogger!). And when I did stop and take photos, I just snapped a photo and didn’t worry about lighting. With the light/sun changing all.day.long, the photos are less than amazing but I think you’ll still get the point.
How I Prepped Our Dining Room
After that was figured out, Matt and I cleared all of the furniture/accessories out of the space so that nothing would get dirty, and we would have plenty of “workspace”. Unfortunately, our dining room table was too big and too heavy to fit somewhere else in the house so we ended up moving it as much out of the way as we could and taping it off to protect it.
Once my dad came over, we got to work measuring, cutting the boards in the garage, and using a nail gun to secure it to the wall. this post and this post.
Since we’ve teamed up on this similar look in my hallway & in my bedroom, we actually moved more quickly than we thought.
For those of you who are looking for details on this look, here’s the specific product/measurements of everything. If I missed something, let me know and I’ll add it.
Board & Batten Details
- The top horizontal piece is 1×4 inch MDF board and it’s hung approx. 74 inches from the ground (to the very top of the board).
- The second horizontal piece is 1×3 inch MDF board and is hung 60 inches from the ground. (leaving a 10-inch gap between the bottom of the first board and the top of the second board)
- The third horizontal piece is 1X3 inch and it’s hung 17 inches from the ground (leaving a 41-inch gap between the 2nd piece and 3rd piece)
- We also took off the baseboard and hung another 1×4 inch board behind that. We needed to do this so that the vertical boards would sit on the new “insert” rather than hanging over the original baseboard. After all the boards were hung, we hung new baseboard + shoe.
- The vertical boards are 1×3 inch MDF board and are hung 22 inches apart from each other. These boards were cut to fit in the spaces between the already hung horizontal pieces and instead of measuring every single vertical board, we hung the first one and used a 22″ board template to measure the next one.
The Finishing Touches
Once all of the boards were secure, it was time to fill the nail holes with putty, caulk all of the seams, and paint both the top of the wall and the ‘faux’ board & batten. We used Sherwin William’s White Satin enamel for the white paint and painted the top of the wall the same color as it was before, which is Benjamin Moore’s Revere Pewter.
Full disclosure: So far we have two ((full)) days of work into this project, with another few evenings thrown in there for measuring, prepping the material, moving furniture, cleaning up, etc. Our whole house is a HOT MESS and there is a serious layer of dust covering …well… pretty much everything.
Oh, and speaking of furniture…. let’s talk about how EXCITED I am for these new chairs to be added to the mix! They came in the mail (already built!!!) this week, and I can’t wait to add them to the space. They’re a little outside my comfort zone, and I’m a little nervous because Matt says they remind him of the Golden Girls’ sunroom. BUT I’m pretty sure that they’re just what we needed to ditch the brown/matchy-matchy look I hated so much.
For the record though… Matt LOVES the Golden Girls so I’m choosing to take that last comment as a huge compliment. But if we’re being 100% real here, these chairs came BUILT, which means Matt automatically LOVES them… A LOT. #noassemblyrequired <– wins every time in his playbook.
To see the full dining room, check out this blog post.
Bridget
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