Hey friends! Today I’m sharing all about how my dad and I created this gorgeous faux board and batten dining room. If you’ve been following for a while, you might recognize that this is in the London Road Fixer Upper which my parents are renovating in Duluth, Minnesota.
This room started out pretty dismal with green walls, orange carpet, and horrible light fixtures.
After refinishing the floors, painting, and replacing the light fixtures the room looked SO much better, but this board and batten treatment really brought it up to the next level. We started this project by deciding where we wanted the top of the board and batten to go, which we decided would be about 5’6″. Then we painted the top and primed the bottom.
Next we had to decide which size board to use. After holding up each choice we decided to use 1×6″ pine boards topped with 1×2″ pine boards. We attached these to the wall using a brad nailer with 1.5″ nails and of course a level! Because the walls are made of lath we didn’t need to find studs, but if you have drywall walls I would be sure to nail into the studs.
Here are the tools we used for this project:
On the walls that were longer than 8′ we had to butt two boards together and we did this by mitering the butt edges at a 45 degree angle. We also mitered the corners for the cleanest look.
We knew that we wanted our battens spaced about 15″ apart from each other, but spacing battens requires as much of a keen eye as a calculator. We’d measure each wall, then divide the total inches by 15″, then we’d round either slightly up or slightly down to have the battens even spaced on each wall. So some of our battens are 14″ apart on one wall, then 16″ on the next wall. As long as each wall looks evenly spaced we were happy with our measurements.We marked the batten placement with a level and a pencil so that we could visualize it before hanging the battens.
For the battens we chose 1/2″ x 2″ pine boards. We chose this thinner board because we did not want it to hang over the top of the tapered baseboard. If the baseboard didn’t have a tapered top we could have gone with 1″x2″ boards. We learned to cut each batten specifically for it’s place because the measurements varied slightly around the home. It is 110 years old so nothing in here is “perfect”. We secured the battens with our trim nailer as well.
With my dad and I working together we were able to get everything hung in about six hours. Then we got it all caulked as well before calling it a night. This involved a LOT of caulking on every single seam. If you’ve never caulked before the trick is to wipe the caulk seam with a damp finger immediately after putting the bead of caulk down. We also filled all the tiny nail holes with wood filler.
The next morning we attacked it all with two coats of Benjamin Moore “Simply White”. We used a brush to edge everything and a small foam roller for the flat parts. Doesn’t this board and batten dining room just look beautiful?! A far cry from the orange carpet and green walls! This board and batten treatment cost about $150 and added a ton of charm to the room. I love that it looks like it could have been there all along!
Thanks so much for stopping by to read today! Click here if you’re interested in seeing the other posts about the London Road Fixer Upper. I’ll be spending more time up there this summer to help with a few projects and share their progress with you! I hope that this post inspired you to try your hand at installing some board and batten. It’s an affordable project that adds a ton of charm and character!