Board & Batten DIY - Master Bedroom

If you follow my blog, you know that I've been dreaming of updating my master bedroom, and you know that I love a serene bedroom and white bedding!  Several months ago, I saw this image on Emily Clark's post on a Charlotte home tour she attended and fell in love.  Exactly the look I wanted!

The bones of the room were similar to our master bedroom.  I had no idea how to achieve this look, though.  Then in early March, Emily followed up with a how-to from one of her readers, Jenny of Evolution of Style.  Jenny had tackled the board and batten project and provided instruction on how to achieve the look.  Here is Jenny's incredible result.

Jenny's post gave me the inspiration and the push to tackle this project myself.  Here is a before picture of our master bedroom.

The first step I took was to lower the footboard posts; they assemble in several pieces, so they can be adjusted to a variation of heights.  I also traded our West Elm bedding for a similar but more polished Grand Embroidered Duvet and shams from Pottery Barn.  It was on sale, and I had a gift card from Christmas!!

Then it was time to start our project.  We measured the space and headed off to Lowe's to gather supplies.  We used primed MDF in its standard sizes.  Our Lowe's didn't sell the exact sizes Jenny recommended in her how-to post, but they were close enough that we just went with the stock pieces rather than doing custom cuts. 



First, we decided how high we wanted our header to be and nailed it in place.  We made this judgment based on the height of the headboard posts.  We used our nail gun for this project (fortunately, we were smarter this time than we were here with the DIY concrete planters).  From there, we measured and determine the width of each "column" and started to nail our boards into place.  We beveled the bottom of each column board to give a smoother transition into the baseboards.

After all of our column boards were in place, we put our rows into place (I feel like I'm talking in Excel speak :)).  We worked from the center to the outside and used a miter saw to cut each piece to fit precisely.  Fortunately, we only had one board that crossed over a light switch or outlet.  We put it in place last and beveled those edges as well.  

Finally, we had all of the boards in place.

As you can see in this detailed picture, the unpainted boards don't look perfect.  There are scuffs, nail holes and seams.  All of this can be (and was) fixed with spackle, caulk and paint.

I forgot to take a pictures, but our first finishing step was to caulk the seams where the boards met.  We used white, paintable caulk. After it dried, we sanded it smooth.  We initially only caulked the seams between boards,  but we determined that we also needed to caulk seams between the wall and the boards to get a more professional finish.  Since we couldn't sand those, we used our finger and a damp paper towel to smooth the caulk out before it dried.  Then we both set to work painting using Sherwin-Williams ProClassic Interior Latex in a gloss finish.  We used brushes and sponge rollers for the painting.  I've realized that I like the gloss paint on the boards but not on the wall.  Our walls have a slight texture on them, which is magnifiied by the gloss paint.  I plan to go back over the insets with a low-gloss paint at some point.

Here is our finished wall.  Ta da!

Again, here is where we started the day of the project.

And, here is where we are today!

I added a quilt from HomeGoods, solid white pillow shams from Pottery Barn and a pillow I made with fabric found at Fabric Factory, a local fabric store.  The lamps are from Pottery Barn and the lamps shades have been switched out for gold lamp shades found at Garden Ridge.  The bedroom paint color is Pratt & Lambert's Nickel and the paneling color is Sherwin-Williams' Greek Villa.  The project took us about 6 hours and cost approximately $100.  I think I got my money's worth on this one!!

We are still working on the finishing details of the bedding.  I'm incredibly please with the result, though. 

Many thanks to Jenny for giving me the instructions and the directions to complete this DIY project, and many thanks to my wonderful husband and our friend Kelly who helped with the project.  It was a group effort!

And, did I mention that we started this project at noon on a Saturday, and I had friends coming over for dinner that night?  I had to go to the grocery store in the middle of the project!!

PS-  As I write this, I am listening to the announcement that US miliatry forces have killed Osama bin Laden.  A proud thank you to all of the men and women serving our country who made this possible!  God bless all of them!