Today I'm sharing a pretty darn easy (& incredibly affordable) way to give a plain wall a face lift. We have a bi-level home, with our living quarters upstairs and the garage, a daylight studio space and a guest suite downstairs. The studio space is where I work and I knew that I wanted a wood wall somewhere down there to add warmth and texture to the room, plus use it occasionally as a backdrop for photos (like I already have on my instagram a few times, below).
We started researching different types of wood walls including peel and stick, types of wood, ways to apply it and just decided to go ahead and wing it and it worked perfectly! We measured the area of the wall (it wasn't a full wall, instead its an area next to the window that is slightly recessed) and went on our way over to home depot. Since I wanted this to be easy and affordable we opted for cedar fence board. At $1.88 per board (we got the 5ft boards) it was the perfect option for us. Since we wanted it to be a fun mix of lengths we divided the boards into 3 groups to be cut at different lengths- 1/2's, 1/3s' & 1/4's that we would then piece together. *note we didn't let our boards dry, we knew they would shrink a bit after we placed them and wanted a more aged look* if you want all your boards to be perfect with no gaps- let them dry for a day or two before applying to the wall!
SUPPLIES USED-
Measuring Tape
Saw
Level
The boards we used were 60" so we cut them into 15", 20" and 30" sections to get our 1/2's, 1/3's and 1/4's that we wanted to piece together and piled them into the studio and decided to work our way left to right along the wall. We figured it would be easier to start with the board closest to the ceiling so that if we needed to cut any to size we could work with them on the bottom (see the small gap below) and not have to keep climbing up and down the ladder. We placed the first board and held the level under it just to make sure our wall was straight and we wouldn't have to make too many adjustments and decided on a pattern with the screws for each length of the board (4 for the 15" 6 for the 20" and 8 for the 30") After that we just eyeballed what would fit and what we liked and made small cuts when needed to go around the outlet and the window trim.
Like I mentioned above if you want a distressed look, put the boards up while they are still slightly damp. Yes there will be some leaks while you put in the screws -we just wiped as we went- and some splits, but I think thats the charming part about this project. Its not perfect, instead it looks aged and rustic and I love that!
After you get everything up, let the wall sit undisturbed for a day or two so that everything dries out and then you are ready to use it however! We love this look and how easy it was (it really only took a couple of hours) that we plan on doing this again upstairs around our fireplace. I'll share some better photos of the studio after my shop launch next weekend, but I hope you get the idea and create a wood wall of your own!
