Hey there! I’m excited to finally share some actual progress on the nursery and show you guys the shiplap accent wall I finished recently! This nursery is already my favorite space in the house and I secretly wish it was my room. 🙂
If you remember from previous posts, this was the room in all of it’s emptiness.
And my design board plans that I posted last week talked about how I really wanted an interesting focal wall behind the crib and ultimately decided on a painted shiplap.
I started out by drawing up a plan (because I’m a nerd and this is probably my favorite part of the design process).
I love the look of the wide planks and decided on 8″ each. However for the very top plank, I had to make it 11.5″ wide because crown molding will eventually go over top of it and the crown will take up 3.5″. So you would still be able to see 8″ of the plank and therefore it would match the rest of the 8″ planks. I hope that makes sense and that my drawing helps describe what I mean. The bottom area left 9.25″ and I debated between an 8″ plank + a 1.25″ plank or one 9.25″ plank. I decided 9.25″ would be less obvious (and easier!) so I went with it!
For the shiplap, I used this quarter inch plywood sheet from Lowe’s. My biggest requirement was that the wood was super thin so that when I covered the wall in it, it didn’t hang over the baseboards in the room because I didn’t want to have to replace those. This utility panel from Lowe’s is super lightweight, easy to handle and worked perfectly for the job in my opinion! And you can’t beat the price! It’s only $13.60 per sheet and it took me 4 sheets to do the whole wall. So this entire project cost me right about $60!
I had Lowe’s cut the plywood sheets for me for no charge. I had two 11.5″ strips cut, two 9.25″ strip, and the remainder cut into 8″ strips. I came home and used my mouse sander to quickly sand off the rough edges from the saw at Lowe’s. This only took a few minutes.
I painted 2 coats of the paint I chose for the room onto each sheet of cut plywood. Sherwin Williams Accessible Beige.
The first thing I did to the wall was measure lines where each board would go and then paint stripes on it where the gaps would be between the wood strips. Painting ahead of time is ALWAYS better than painting after the fact in my opinion. I knew you would be able to see the wall in the small gaps between the shiplap and I wanted it to all be the same color.
Here it is after I finished painting the stripes. And notice I had the outlets installed (by a professional electrician) for the sconces! Is it weird how excited I got the day he installed these?
Then I started going to town with my nail gun just nailing the strips straight to the wall. I didn’t pay any mind to where the studs were, I just put nails in every 24-36″ or so. With the amount of nails in the wall, some are bound to hit studs and that’s good enough for me.
Here is the top strip that’s 11.5″ This one was easy to install, as I used the ceiling as the guide.
I used my mitre saw to cut the 8 foot pieces down when needed.
And sanded down the cut edges with my electric sander before I nailed them to the wall.
For the sconce outlets I had to cut circles in the planks. I measured (twice of course!) and drew the circles on the planks.
I used a standard drill to make a starting point before I used my jigsaw.
I stuck the jigsaw blade in my starting hole and simply followed my pencil drawing to complete the circle.
And nailed those pieces up just like the rest.
Not to brag, but I was pretty impressed with my holes and my first time using a jigsaw!
To measure the spacing in between each plank, I used two nickels that I taped together. It was super easy because it avoided having to actually measure anything. I would put the plank up against the last one, put my nickels in between the two, and then nail.
Trucking away down the wall…
I had to make one other cut using my jigsaw and that was for the outlet at the bottom of the wall. I used the same method as I did for the sconce outlets. Measured, drew with pencil, and cut.
I painted the outlet and outlet cover the same color as the wall to disguise them.
Once I was done nailing up all the boards, I went back and patched all the nail holes with wood putty and painted over them.
Here is the semi-finished product.
When I was done I wasn’t totally satisfied with the corners of the wall where the shiplap met the other walls. It didn’t look “finished” to me.
So I went back out to Lowe’s and bought the smallest quarter round I could find.
I painted it the same color as everything else and nailed it to the corners of the wall. Doesn’t it look much more “finished” now?
And here’s a sneak peak at the completely finished wall! More to come later on the crown molding and lighting, but what do you guys think? I am head over heels in love and may or may not be shiplapping my entire house. And for only $60 how can I not?
The before:
The plan:
The after!
Comment and let me know your thoughts, I love hearing from you guys! And let me know if I missed any steps or can answer any questions on how I did this project!