board + batten.

Finally a project to check off the list! I know it seems to be the trend lately but living in a new construction house with zero architectural elements and creativity you just have to add you own! And that is just what I did in our soon to be dining room!

Although we just purchased the supplies recently the room has been taped & the chalk line has been there for a few months now. I'm not going to go into all the nitty gritty of a how to because there are so many good ones already out there. I used this one courtesy of Censational Girl and adjusted the specs etc based off of our room.

Here are the before + afters!

We'd like to eventually knock out that wall to the left of the closet to open the room up to the living room...but for now it is what it is.

 Just a few quick tips that helped me along the way:

- The horizontal pieces are pre-primed to save time; they measure out at 3.5" x 10'

- The vertical pieces are cut from a 4x8 sheet of MDF; the guys at Home Depot did it for us and it saved us about $60 (instead of buying the pre-cut ones); they measure out at 2.5"

- The height of our board & batten is 5'

- The space between each vertical piece is 13.5" (we marked every 16" but you have to take into account the width of the plank)

13.5" wall space + 2.5" piece of wood = 16)

- we used nails and liquid nails where there were no studs to attached the boards

- I painted to walls white first

- I suggest priming & painting the sides of the boards before you hang them. After filling nail holes etc you'll need to paint the front pieces again to clean everything up but the sides are hard to do once they are attached to the wall

- We adjusted the spacing between some boards to make them look better visually. Save those "adjustments" for the corners so the general span of the wall looks symmetrical

Next up the horribly designed closet doors. Do you have some? Isn't it annoying to do the closet dance...I want something from this end...no, this end. I bet a man invented them!

I have a fun project in mind for them to actually make them cool!

Will the room be done in time for Christmas Eve dinner? At least done enough to eat in hopefully. Maybe some TV tables and lawn chairs? I kid....I think.