Any new construction home you go into has the same look. Boring. zzzz……. So why not take a plan wall and turn it into an architectural feature!
I don’t know if I would really call this board and batten, or judges panels, or craftsman style trim, or what… But I don’t care what you call it, is really pretty 🙂
Before starting this project for the homeowner, I did a bunch of research on how folks added the trim when there was existing baseboard and crown molding. I could tell by a lot of the pictures that people hadn’t really considered how it would look when you have a 3/4 inch board ticking out against the top profile of baseboard. Especially since it is very thin at the top. The look was really boring me. It just didn’t took right.
So I took to the big box home improvement store to find a solution. See, I could live with the new trim protruding a little bit, but if you look at the profile of most new construction baseboards, the profile at the top is something like this:
It gets pretty skinny up there! Here’ was my solution and I think it gave a great effect to transition smoother to the skinny top of the base and crown molding:
I added a piece of trim called “stop” You can see its skinny on one side, but gets thicker on the other. This way, when I put the Board and batten pieces up, although they would still protrude a bit, its a much less drastic transition! you’ll see 🙂
OK- so, I am not the best at math, or calculating, so I drew up a rough sketch and hit the lumber aisle. Of course, always buy extra! I used 1×4 primed MDF. That boils down to 3/4″ x 3.5″ actual measurements.
After I got the “stop” pieces installed on the top of the baseboard, and then flipped over and installed against the crown molding, I was good to get started!
I used my DeWalt brad nailer for this job. I couldn’t imagine using a hammer. It would take forever!! I installed the two vertical end pieces first. OK, so here’s where you need to use your noggin…. This wall was 16 ft long. Therefore, I couldn’t run one continuous piece horizontally, I would have needed to cut and seam them. So instead, I did my vertical pieces first so they wouldn’t have seams. If you wall is 12 ft or less, you can do the opposite and go horizontal first.
Also, learn from this: Before you do anything, figure out a height on the wall where you want the lower pieces of trim to run vertically. The second one from the top. then make a pencil mark along the entire wall before putting up any vertical rails. I’ll explain in a minute.
After you get the two end pieces up, measure from the interior edges of each piece of trim and mark the center of the wall. Make a mark on your next vertical board so you can line them up!
Now, continue that same process and you will have the wall divided again. and then do it again! Here you can see 1/2 of the wall.
Do the same thing on the other side!
REMEMBER: Measure twice, three times if you need to! Use your calculator if you cant divide. It very frustrating to make mistakes at this point. Oh and by the way, you will need to measure each and every piece before you cut. Walls are never square, so each piece needs to be cut for the place its going. Remember that. For real!
Now, you just start adding in to bottom and top pieces!
These need to be measured individually again as well. Despite my measuring and using a level, not every piece was identical. Not very different, and some minor differences can be filled later with caulk, but still they were all a bit different.
OK, so now for that upper rail. Remember when I said you should make a pencil mark across the wall. In my example here, since I went vertical first, I had to cut and fit all the upper rail pieces. I didn’t do a pencil mark, so I was leveling and drawing pencil marks on the trim as I went to get those pieces in line. If they aren’t perfect, It will be noticeable!
Looks good, doesn’t it???
See that wasn’t hard! BUT….. now you have to go back and make sure that all the nails are suck, fill any spaces with caulk or spackle and caulk seams against the wall. My advice here is to use a lightweight spackle to fill any seams in the trim and fill any nail hole. Follow along with a slightly damp rag and wipe off any excess. You don’t want to have to do any sanding.
I used painters caulk to fill any larger gaps between the trim and the wall to give it a seamless look. Plus it dries quickly and you can paint!
And HERE’S the finished product!!
What a statement! This is painted Sherwin Williams Fundamental Gray. It is a much warmer and darker gray then the agreeable gray walls, so it add drama and interest
Here’s the before:
And again the after:
How about a ceiling next???? Wouldn’t that be cool?
Let me know what you think, and what project you’re up to!
