One Room Challenge - Week 2
Earlier this week I shared our last minute change of plans to participate in the One Room Challenge and update our master bathroom! Well its been a crazy busy week of demoing, catching up and completing our first big project for the space: DIY board and batten. We added custom board and batten to all of the bathroom walls and painted the walls!
I loveeeee the result of the DIY board and batten! This project alone has already made a huge impact and makes the space much more high end looking in my opinion. We painted the walls above the board and batten a dark gray and I am actually going to be changing that since it's just too dark for me (I was trying to be bold haha).
Below is a full tutorial on how we applied this board and batten treatment to our bathroom walls.
Also, if you are looking for an even simpler board and batten style or just a board and batten accent wall, check out my tips in my easy DIY board and batten wall post. And check out my tutorial on how to install floor to ceiling board and batten with crown molding for another option! And I have 5 tips for installing full room DIY board and batten around and entire room here!
Note, this post contains some affiliate links. For more information see my disclosures here.
How to add board and batten:
Materials
- 1x3x8 boards*
- 1x2x8 boards*
- 5 ¼" Base Molding (or you can reuse your current base molding)
- Cove Molding
- 1 ¼ brad nails
- Construction adhesive (Liquid Nails)
- Wood Screws
- White paintable caulk for molding
- Spackle
Tools
- Drill
- Miter saw
- Brad nailer
- Level
- Dremel tool or jigsaw (if needed)
- Stud finder
*Note, for the 1x3 and 1x2 boards you can either use furring strips, common pine board, or pre-primed boards depending on what your budget allows. We used a mix of furring strips and common pine board to save money. Using all furring strips is the cheapest option (only $2/board), but you will need to spend a lot of extra time and effort prepping the boards for painting since they are extra rough wood. Also, make sure to pick out the straightest boards! Use pre-primed boards if you want to reduce your labor efforts and don't mind spending more $!
Overall, the total price for our board and batten (not including paint) was less than $75!
Tip: If you do use furring strips, SAND them before attaching to the wall and make sure they are nice and smooth!
1. Remove baseboard from wall
We actually had a tile baseboard around our bathroom wall from when we had our bathroom flooring replaced, so we removed that with a prybar...it came right off! Be careful when removing your baseboard if you want to reuse it again.
2. Attach 1x3 to wall along the floor
Cut a 1x3 to size with a miter saw and attach to the wall along the floor. We used a stud finder to attach the board to the studs with screws and a drill. Then, we also used some 1 ¼" brad nails with our brad nailer along the board too. Make sure to sink your screws into the wood so no screws are above the wood surface.
3. Attach a second 1x3 and base moulding
Cut another 1x3 to size and attach to the wall a few inches above the base 1x3. To know exactly where to attach it, hold up your base molding against the two 1x3s (as shown in photo below) and make sure your base molding will cover about ¼" of the bottom edge of the second 1x3. Attach the 1x3 to the wall, into the wall studs, with 1 ¼" brad nails and a brad nailer. Make sure this second board is level before attaching!
We had a few wall items to work around, like our toilet piping, where we used our Dremel tool to cut a notch out of the board to make everything fit properly.
Finally, cut your base molding to size and attach it to the first 1x3 (along the floor) with brad nails and a brad nailer.
4. Attach a third 1x3 to the middle of the wall
Cut a third 1x3 to size and attach it about halfway up the wall with brad nails and brad nailer. You can also attach it about ¾ of the way up the wall, but in order to save on material and not have weird cuts around our vanity mirror, we chose to attach it about halfway on our wall. Again make sure you use a level to make sure the board is level when attaching and make sure to put a few nails through the wall studs for extra security.
5. Add battens (vertical boards) to wall
Determine how much space you want between each batten (vertical board). We chose to do 12 inches apart for this bathroom.
For a larger room, you may want to do bigger spacing to suit the scale of the room better. For our DIY board and batten wall in our nursery room we did 16.5" of spacing since it was a much bigger room. And for our floor to ceiling DIY board and batten accent wall in our living room, which was a very large wall, we used 26" spacing.
Then, mark on the walls where each batten will go and how many you will need. Measure the exact height needed for each batten based on where they will be attached to the wall. Not all walls are perfectly straight and wonky things can happen with measurements being slightly off, so it's best to measure the height for each one exactly.
Attach with 1 ¼" brad nails and brad nailer. You can also add some construction adhesive (like Liquid Nails) on the back of each batten for extra security since the nails aren't going into the wall studs.
We had to cut some short battens too in order to work around things like the sink... The battens slightly overhang on our sink, but it doesn't bother me. If you don't like this you could sand the boards down or cut the bottoms at an angle.
6. Add the 1x2 to create a top ledge
Cut your 1x2 to size and attach to the top 1x3 to create a ledge using 1 ¼" brad nails and wood glue or construction adhesive.
On our wall with the door trim, light switches and electric outlet, we had to get creative with our board placement and notch some areas out to work around the issues. Again our Dremel came to the rescue, love this tool!
7. Add cove moulding
Cut your cove moulding to size and attach under the 1x2 with brad nails.
8. Fill holes and caulk
Fill all nail holes and any holes in the wood (more common with furring strips) with spackle. Then, lightly hand sand over the spackle to make sure your surface is smooth. Next, caulk all gaps. Caulking is my least favorite part and not easy for me, but it really helps complete the look.
9. Prime and Paint!
Yay all the prep work and building is complete! Time for the transformation. Prime and paint your DIY board and batten. Make sure to prime any wood knots really well if you have any. We used Alabaster by Sherwin Williams in satin for our board and batten paint color.
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Here is the final result!
Some features of the board and batten that I think adds an extra wow factor is having the bottom of the board and batten attached to the oversize baseboard moulding and the addition of the extra cove moulding under the top ledge.
What do you think of the board and batten DIY? Have you tried this wall treatment in your home before?
You can see sneak peeks of all my master bathroom projects on my Instagram stories! This weekend we are starting on our next project, the sliding barn door and I seriously can't wait!!
Follow along on Instagram or Facebook for my latest projects, as well as Pinterest!
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Looks great! What did you use the kreg jig for?
Thanks Adam! You don't need a Kreg jig for this, I must have copied it over from another tutorial when writing the post, thanks for letting me know!
I've been wrestling with how to do the baseboards for similar treatment in my bathroom but knowing that the area behind my old baseboards would be horrible once I removed them - thanks for showing this....great inspiration!!!
You're welcome Stacey! I'm glad it was helpful!
This is beautiful. We just bought a house and I’ll be doing this in more of the rooms. I love that darker color you used on top too. What color is that?
Thank you so much Britnie! The dark color is Peppercorn by Sherwin Williams.
This is beautiful! You guys did an amazing job. I'll be using this tutorial for our own bathroom remodel, thank you!
Thank you Laura! Good luck with your remodel!
Any suggestions for if my wall has a texture on it rather than being smooth?
If it's just a little bit of texture, you can use a flat or eggshell paint and it shouldn't be noticeable. But, if you have a lot of texture you can use a thin 1/8" sheet of mdf or plywood or something similar to attach to the wall with brad nails and adhesive to cover the texture. Then paint it all the same color.
@Angela Marie Made, will the fact that there is moisture in the bathroom be bad for mdf? Our bathroom has awful texture but I’m really wanting to do this 😬
I'm going to be adding board and batten in my foyer this week and I was trying to figure out a way to do the baseboard - your technique is AWESOME! Thank you for the inspiration. It looks gorgeous!
Great! I'm so glad it was helpful!!!
What size is the cove moulding you used? Thank you
It is 11/16 in. x 11/16 in.
Looks awesome! I'm going to try this in my bathroom 🙂
Thanks Amelia!
I like the idea of using the existing base moulding and putting the 1 x 3 behind it. I would like to do this in my entryway. How would I handle the door casings? the base moulding will be 2 inches thick and the door casing only 1 inch. Is it possible or does everything have to be mitered?
That's a great question Marie! You will most likely need to do a miter angle cut. I'd test out the cut first with some scrap pieces to see what angle will look the best against the door casing.
I love the moulding! We are planning to do the same to our front hallway. I wondered if in retrospect what you would recommend- painting the walls first? And also I saw you used satin paint- how would you feel about semigloss since most of our baseboard mouldings are semigloss?
Thank you! You can paint the walls first if you want! It's pretty easy either way, painting before or after. Also, semi-gloss works great too, I was just going for a little less sheen in this space with the satin.
Thank you for your tutorial! My husband and I have a bathroom that is similar in size so will use this as our guide. Also we love the light fixture that you chose. May I ask where to purchase one like it? Thank you
Thanks Nola! The light is from Amazon, here is the link to it: http://amzn.to/2q5ySlY
Hi Angela,
The vertical boards are also the 1x3 correct?
Yes that's correct!
Hi Angela,
Looks great! We just purchased a new home and we are going to
Do this in our great room. We were just go to use our baseboard that we have instead of adding an additional base board. Just wondering if it matters about adding the additional base board.
Thanks!
Thank you Whitney! You can keep your current baseboard, though it may look a little different depending on what your current baseboard looks like. If it's a flat edge like the 1x3 board and the same thickness, then it will be very easy to do and the batten boards will line up well. If the baseboard is thinner than the batten boards there will be some overhang. Or you can cut the bottom of the batten boards at an angle if you don't want to have any overhang.
Thanks, Angela! We did end up keeping our baseboards and cutting the batten boards on a angle.
I am so grateful for this tutorial! I am having my bathroom redone and wanted to do board and batten walls. You showed just what I wanted. I sent the instructions to my contractor so we were entirely on the same page. The wall treatment was finished today and I love it!!! Keep up the amazing work!!!
Thank you! I'm so glad to hear it was helpful!
Why not just use 1x8 behind the baseboard instead of two 1x3s?
1 x 3's are a little cheaper and usually easier to find.
Thanks! Really like the project
I really like that and it's so easy 😃
In one photo of the board and batten, there are two different paint colors with the top being lighter than the bottom. Please let me know the names of both paints! I really like the look!
Thank you, sorry for the late response. The top, lighter color is White Dove by Benjamin Moore and the bottom is Mindful Grey by Sherwin Williams.
What is the height that you decided on?
I am wanting to do this in a guest bath. Did you put the board and batten behind the toilet? I also have a small wall between the door and the linen storage. Would you put it there as well? Thanks for such creative ideas and wonderful tutorials!
Yes I did! I would put it there if you're wanting that classic wrap around look rather than an accent wall!
Hi Angela! How did you seal the cut ends of the wood by the shower? Did you just rub them with silicone or caulk? I am having trouble understanting how the end caps finish out if that makes sense.
I just filled in the gap from where the wood board stops and meets the shower with caulk! I filled in any other gaps with caulk too, it really helps to complete the look.
This bathroom wainscotting step-by-step was so helpful! Using your guide, my hubby and I did an accent wall in our downstairs bathroom in 1 week (leisurely retired folks pace 😉 and it looks marvelous. Always wanted that look! Next, upstairs bathroom, then an accent wall in our master bedroom. We used PVC moulding and a hardwood piece for the top ledge since it's a small downstairs bathroom that gets a lot of use. Easy to ding the walls. Thanks!
Awesome, I love to hear that!!