DIY Plank Wall

Love the look of a shiplap wall?  You can easily DIY your own plank wall in just 10 simple steps!

It’s no secret that I love me some Fixer Upper!  So naturally, ever since I learned what “shiplap” was I’ve wanted to have a wall in my house.  Yeah, I know….me and every other girl in the world, right?!  But I just love the character and texture it adds to a boring old room.

Recently, after years of pinning DIY projects I decided to just roll with one.  This one as a matter of fact.  Though ours wasn’t quite as cheap as theirs.  We had the perfect wall in our front living/sitting room area that I’d been dying to decorate. It’s been sitting empty for years now and I don’t even really know why.  It’s just one of those extra spaces in our house that we don’t really need, but it also happens to be the first thing you see when you walk in the front door.  It was definitely time!

I convinced my husband that we could do it, despite our lack of motivation for completing home improvement projects. Actually let me rephrase that…we are motivated to say, “we want this and that”, and “oh, what about this?” but…..when it comes to the execution we come to a halt.  Not so much because we are lazy (ha!), but more like we start budgeting the project and calculating time and resources and end up talking ourselves out of it.  Happens ALL the time.  Though, once we got rolling with this project, we were both super surprised at just how easy it was to do ourselves!

One more thing before we get started, while this project was easy, in my opinion the worst part is the painting! I’m not one of those that enjoys painting or finds it theraputic. Nope.  It actually stresses me out a little.  I’m either pressing to hard on the wall, or putting too much/too little paint on my brush while dripping it everywhere.  I’m kind of a mess.  So then in order to have it look good I get totally stressed out trying to go slow and make it look good.  Ahhh…My shoulders are tensing up just thinking about it!  But luckily it was only one wall and not an entire room with a bunch of edging/trim work.  So it was doable and I survived!

Now…on with it!

Here is how you can create your own plank wall in just 10 Simple Steps!  DIY adapted from this tutorial. 

Here are the supplies you’ll need and the steps to follow if you want your own “faux shiplap” plank wall.

Supplies:

Underlayment Plywood (cut into 6″ x 8′ planks or whatever width you’d like–Lowes/Home Depot will do the cutting for you!)

Paint (we used Sherwin Williams Alabaster White for primer and paint)

Liquid Nails

Sandpaper (we used 220 grit)

1/8 inch tile spacers 

Wood puddy or spackling

Tools:

Miter Saw (To cut the lengths of the planks as needed.  We borrowed this from a friend, but will most likely purchase one in the future.)

Nail gun (a must have for this project! This is the gun we have, but there are cheaper options.)

Ruler

Pencil/Chalk line

Optional: Stud finder

Steps:

1. Depending on the wall you are covering and the color you are trying to achieve, you may need to paint your wall first.  We had a mustardy yellow as a base and decided to cover it with a coat of the Alabaster White before getting started.  One coat was all we needed and since we were covering the wall, I wasn’t worried about perfect coverage.
2. Find and mark your studs with pencil/chalk line.  My husband has a nifty stud finder that made this easy peezy.
3. Decide how you want your planks to look.  We went with a patterned look, alternating every other row, but you may not want your planks as uniform.  This was easier for us and didn’t require a lot of math or measuring which is the kind of project we like! Our wall was exactly 16ft wide so two 8ft planks fit almost perfectly.
4. Cut your planks to your preferred length.  Sand all the cut edges to ensure no rough edges are exposed.
5. Put a layer of liquid nails on your board, align appropriately on your wall, press in, pop some nails in your studs, and viola!…on to the next board! Note: we started at the top and worked our way down…mainly because our crown molding was level and we thought that if we needed to make any extra cuts at the end, that we’d want them on the bottom. Luckily that didn’t happen, but you could start at the top or bottom.
6. Moving on to your second row…make sure you place your spacers in between the boards if you want that darker line in between. Then just repeat steps 4 and 5 until you have completed your wall.  Simple as that.
7. Once your boards are up, fill your nail holes with puddy, let dry, and sand until smooth.
8. Add the paint color of your choice! I loved the look of a white plank wall so we went with the classic Alabaster White.  And from I understand is one of Joanna’s favorite colors to use. 😉  I also love the look of a dark navy or gray plank wall.  But for this room I really wanted to keep it bright.  Tip: paint the boards horizontally to avoid getting any paint drippings down your boards and in between planks.
9. Depending on how your boards line up you may need to add a little piece of trim to the edges to cover any uneven edges.  We’ve decided to add a piece of quarter round to each side for a more finished look.
10. Last step is to stand back and admire your work and to imagine all the ways to decorate it!  I’m hoping it doesn’t take me as long to figure out decor as it did me to finally do something with this space–fingers crossed!

For a 120 square foot wall our total project cost was around $150.00 for wood, paint, liquid nails, filler, new paint rollers, etc. The wood itself was $13 per sheet and we were able to get 8 planks per sheet.  Shiplap cost per board is around $8-$13, so that alone was a huge cost saver! We probably could’ve found cheaper paint, but we wanted to use the best quality. But all in all, not a super expensive project for such an impact it had in the room.  We also have supplies left over.

I am so excited to have this new accent wall complete!  And since it was so easy, I’ve already been eyeing other spaces in the house that we can plank!  Umm, and we do have those leftover supplies to use up!  We have a lot of bare walls that would look beautiful with a little bit of faux shiplap. The hubs is thrilled! 😉

Before

After

I’m still undecided on the yellow walls…I think I’ll leave them for now and see how I like it with new decor and curtains added in.  I have that color as an accent in other rooms of my house so I kinda like the cohesive flow of colors throughout my first floor.

Thanks for following along with me during this project! I shared bits of the process on my Instastories so if you aren’t already following me on Instagram…head on over and give me some love!

How many of you are ready to DIY your own plank wall now??