Using simple pine boards I was able to give our second bathroom a major dose of character. Today I’m sharing how I DIYed this simple farmhouse board & batten!
Let’s take a quick walk down memory lane, ok? I started working on our second bathroom around the beginning of July. My plan was to go a little more modern farmhouse , but decided I’d go more of a cottage farmhouse vibe. That fits the rest of the house. I also thought I’d have it done by the end of July. Big shocker, I didn’t. 😉 My plans have changed dramatically, but the one thing that didn’t was board & batten. I’ve known since the beginning I wanted to use some form of it in this room. I’m SO excited I finally got it done this week.
What I used…
- 1×3 for the top rail
- 1×2 for the vertical boards
- circular saw
- 1 1/2″ paneling nails
- claw hammer
- my favorite bright white paint
How I DIYed the board & batten…
- The first thing I did was measure how high up I wanted to board & batten to come. I decided I wanted it to be level with the window trim. It’s right about 4 feet from the floor to the top of my top board.
- I got to work measuring the walls for the top rail. I cut my 1x3s to the size I needed, and nailed them in place with paneling nails.
- Once I had the top rail in place, I went ahead and painted the rail and the bottom portion of the wall white. It stayed like this for a while because life. ha!
- The next step was to measure how far apart I wanted my vertical boards to be. I knew I wanted smaller boards closer together, so I opted to use 1x2s and placed them right around 10″ apart.
- Since our house is very old, NOTHING IS STRAIGHT. Seriously…nothing. Each and every single vertical board had to be measured. Funny enough, they’re all about 1/8th of an inch different. This made the project quite tedious. Thankfully, this isn’t a big room.
- When the boards were cut I got to work leveling and nailing them all into place. I still haven’t painted them because I’m not quite sure what I want to do. More about that later.
You can see that without doing anything else but hanging boards the bathroom has changed dramatically. I CAN NOT wait to get it painted. Speaking of painting…I can’t decide if I should paint the board & batten a color, or if I should leave it white. Help me decide by telling me what you think in the comments!!
I know I always say this, but I really don’t think there’s a whole left to do after I paint. I’m really excited to get it done because I have lots more projects I want to get to work on. 😉
I hope you have had a great week. As always, thanks for spending a tiny part of your day here with me.
Shelby says
I like the white! It’s so bright and cheery! This looks awesome!
Amanda - Sunshine Valley WV says
Thank you so much, Shelby!
Crystal says
It looks so good!!! What an impact!!! Love it! I’m getting ready to board and batten my entry and I was planning on 1×3’s but I really like the 1×2’s!
Amanda - Sunshine Valley WV says
Thank you so much!!! I used 1x3s in my foyer, and I think I like the look of the 1x2s better!