board and batten

After seeing this project on "It's The Little Things" blog, I had been wanting to try it for some time...finally with the bar exam being over, I was able to get it done. Ben and I put up the board and batten - really this is faux, bc the real thing would have boards of wood up on the wall and the slats would be there to cover the seams - in two days. My can-do-anything dad made the L-shaped bench for us and it has some much needed storage inside.

We only put the board and batten on 2 walls (plus one teeny wall), because in our little condo the eating area is at the end of a galley style kitchen. I'm really please with how it turned out! Makes it more of a separate, defined area.

This was a fairly easy project. My dad has two table saws so we cut the wood ourselves, but if you didn't, you could totally have Home Depot or whoever make the cuts for you. I think we bought 16 1x2s, 1 1x3, and the L shaped moulding. All together it was a about a hundred and fifty dollars.

We hung the 1x3 with drywall screws at 56" from the base moulding. Then cut and nailed (with small finishing nails) the 1x2s about one foot apart from each other. There were two electrical sockets that we had to work around so we just fudged the distance between the slats to fit around those.

We initially tried putting the 1x2 slats up with liquidnails, but because the woods was often bowed, that didn't last long. Using two finishing nails in each slat worked well, and the nail holes were easy to cover. We did miter the edges which is kind of difficult because its tricky to figure out what cuts to make. Be careful!

After all the wood was on the walls we did quite a bit of caulking. Filling in the spaces between the slats and the wall and where the boards meet. Let that all dry and then got to work sanding. Ben did this. I am weak. Then all we had to do was prime and paint. We used semi-gloss bright white.

I don't know exactly how Dad made the bench because he delivered it already made. I think he basically built two boxes out of 2x4s and then covered them in MDF and added the base moulding.

The plain walls in the eating area before:

My handyman :) hard at work:

Before it was painted:

Close-up. This is before the screws were covered and the caulk was sanded:

And the end product w/ some antique Ironstone platters hung above (ignore the artwork sitting on the bench):

I am still going to add seat cushions to the bench. I haven't decided on a fabric yet...I'm a commitment phobe when it comes to fabrics!

I'm also going to hang a new light fixture.  I'm thinking this super affordable light fixture from Lowes:

What do ya'll think?! We plan on staying here for a couple more years (we have to stay for 3 bc we got the first-time homebuyer tax credit) and then keeping it as a rental property... so I suppose we will just leave the bench and table here for the tenants.