DIY Home Improvements
Posted on 1st August 2019
As a highly impulsive person who isn’t always great at forward planning, I write this tutorial knowing full well I should have prepared for it more and taken more photos along the way. But, I didn't. So I will have to make do with what I have! Which is nothing really other than finished photos. That said, I have had so so so many messages and comments asking me how to do the board and batten panelling in my spare room, that I couldn’t resist jotting it all down retrospectively and popping a tutorial up on the blog. Lots of comments asking where the bedding etc is from so I will link all of the items for you at the bottom of the page! As you’ll know from my other tutorial on panelling, we have given it a go before in my office and it went pretty bloody brilliantly even if I do say so myself. So I was full of confidence and wanting to do it again in the spare room. The same cannot be said however for Josh. He flat out refused to be involved in any more panelling. He’d had enough of mitring perfectly neat 45 degree angled pieces of wood apparently. So if panelling was to happen, it was down to me to do it. Fortunately, I knew I wanted a slightly different style panelling in the bedroom anyway. Browse Pinterest and you’ll see just how many different ways you can panel a wall. I already had a Pinterest board on the go from when I was gathering inspiration for the office, so I started adding to it for the bedroom, and decided after seeing lots of images, that the board and batten style was the one for me. Modern, clean looking and easy to do (no angles other than right angles), I was confident I could do it myself. This picture became my main inspiration for the room: As is my go to before any DIY that I haven’t tried before, I took to Pinterest blogs and Youtube tutorials to watch how other people had applied theirs. What became apparent is that nearly everything I came across in my research suggested it was easy to do…yay! Here is a simple step by step tutorial for how I created and installed our simple and effective board and batten wall panelling. Step 1: Measuring (DISCLAIMER 1: There are lots of tutorials telling you how to apply this panelling, but lots don’t go into the details of HOW you measure everything, they just tell you to measure. So please excuse that this post is wordy… it just goes into a lot of details that lots breeze over.) (DISCLAIMER 2: I've used these measurements as an example only, they were not my measurements, so please don’t use the same ones and expect to get the same look. It’s so important you tailor them to your wall space.) As was the case with my other panelling tutorial, the maths part is the hardest part of all. Grab yourself several pieces of paper, a pencil, tape measure, a bucket load of patience and prepare to get stuck in with some numbers.
Firstly, measure the full width of your wall to work out the lengths of your horizontal panels. Measure across the very bottom, just above your skirting board, and measure further up the wall approximately where you would like your top panel to be. You can make your panelling any height you want, but I just decided to get approximately 2/3 of the way up. Make a note of these two measurements on your paper. For this example, I’m going to say that my wall was 200cm wide.
Next, you need to decide how tall you want your vertical panels to be. As I mentioned above, I knew I wanted them approx 2/3 up the wall. All I did here was work out by eye were it would look good for the panelling to stop, measured that height and rounded that measurement to the nearest 10 to make it easier (remembering 160cm for example is easier than 162.5cm, and you won’t be able to tell the difference with that 2.5cm). For this example, let's say the total height of my panelling was going to be 160cm. I measured from on top of the skirting boards rather than the floor.
Step 2: Panel sizes and spacing
Ok, so you know how long your wall is (200cm) and you know how high up the wall you need to go (160cm). Next you need to work out the width of the panels. I did guess work here and working by eye which is how I work best. I picked 10cm as a starting point for the width of my panels, as I’m all about the round numbers. I checked this on my tape measure to see the size, and it looked like a good width to me. Not too thick, not too skinny that it wouldn’t make an impact.
Knowing that my top and bottom panels would be 10cm each in width meant that the space left in between would be 140cm. Which means all of my vertical panels needed to be 140cm tall.
With me so far??
I now needed to work out the width of my vertical panels, and this was probably the hardest part because the width of them goes hand in hand with the positioning of them on the wall and the gaps between each one. This part makes up the main look of the panelling so you have to get it right!
First of all, you need to think roughly how many panels you want. I knew I wanted one dead centre in the middle, and I wanted one against each edge to perfectly frame the panelling. That meant that with those three in place, I could see the space left either side of the centre panel. I decide one each side more wouldn’t be enough, 3 would not leave enough gap in between, so 2 was just right. That meant I had 7 vertical panels in total and 6 gaps:
left end panel, GAP, panel 2, GAP, panel 3, GAP, centre panel, GAP panel 5, GAP panel 6, GAP, right end panel.
Still with me?!
Final maths bit is the spacing. We still need to decide on the width of the vertical panels. We know they’re going to be 140cm long, but how wide? I wanted mine slightly more narrow than the top and bottom horizontal panels which were 10cm, so I took a random number of 8cm and tried that. I’ve got 7 panels, so 7 x 8cm = 56cm.
My wall is 200cm, so take away the 56cm leaves you with 144 cm of bare wall space. This is your gaps!
I have 6 gaps, so 144 / 6 = 24cm
You now have your measurements! Your panels will be 8cm wide, with a 24cm gap in between each one. This will make you spacing perfectly symmetrical!
Step 3: Mark it all out on the wall
Blimey that was hard to explain! But from now on the tutorial is easy!.
Im a very visual person, so for the next step, just to make sure I was happy, I drew all of this out on the wall. I marked where the panels would be with the correct widths, and measured the exact spacing to make sure I liked how it looked. If you take care doing this, you’ll have a really easy and accurate template in place when you stick your panelling on.
Step 4: Get your wood cut
I used simple MDF wood for this, and had it all cut to size in Homebase, which they do for 50p per cut. I chose a 9mm MDF board. This gave enough depth for it to look effective and stand out on the wall, without it looking too overly imposing. The boards came in 200m sheets, so I was lucky that my top and bottom horizontals didn’t need any joins and could all be one strip. I also bought a length of decorative moulding to go across the top panel, to finish it off a bit more ornately. Other than that you just need the following:
Step 5: Stick it all on
I want to stress that this part is really easy, and I was so hungover when I was doing it! So don’t worry about it, just get stuck in and go for it.
You’ll need to use your instant grab adhesive for this. I started by applying the top horizontal panel first, as the top section would be most visible so I wanted this part to look the best (you’ll see what I mean by this in a minute). Apply your grab adhesive generously to the back, and then stick onto the wall using the template you drew on earlier as your guide. Hold it tightly in place for a few seconds while is sticks, and work your way along the length making sure it's firmly stuck to the wall. If your wall isn’t dead straight and you’re finding one end pings off, you might need to drive a few pins into the wood to keep it in place. Sink the pins deeply into the wood so you can fill over the top of the hole afterwards and hide the nail. Use a spirit level to check its perfectly straight. The glue will hold it firmly in place but it's still pretty pliable for quite some time, so don’t be afraid to move the wood around to get it perfectly straight.
Next, stick on the bottom horizontal panel in the same way. I sat mine just on top of my skirting board, so it was easy to get it straight using the skirting as a guide. You can also add your decorative piece of moulding to the top panel.
Once you’ve done this, move on to gluing your vertical panels in exactly the same way as you did above. When you stick each piece on, make sure you perfect butt up the join to the edge of your top horizontal panel. This will ensure your joins are really neat and when you paint over they should blend in seamlessly.
You might notice here that you have a few gaps and the bottom of your vertical panels… don’t worry! It was unlike that we would ever get the measurements bang on. This is why we neatly butted the joins up at the top, so the most visible part looks perfect and the bottom part (which for me will be hidden the bed and bedside tables) is the bit where we can fill the gaps using Polyfila.
Step 6: Caulk and fill
Once it has all dried properly, fill over any joins and then sand it down finely when it is dry to make really neat, seamless joins. If you have any large gaps (I had a couple of 3 of 4 mm gaps at the bottom) just pad this out with filler and neatly sand it down. Make sure you use filler and not caulk in any area that you need to sand, as caulk doesn’t sand well. Apply caulk to all of your edges to neaten it all off, and you’re done!
I didn’t bother to prime before I painted, I just painted straight over the top and didn’t have any problems, but check with your paint brand to see what it recommends.
I hope that guide wasn’t too complicated. I know it was long, but honestly it takes longer to write it down than it does to actually do it! Please tag me if any pictures if you’ve attempted this, I would love to see!
Shop This Room
Bedside Tables (I painted them black)
Paint colour was colour matched to Farrow and Ball Treron and then I mixed in white.
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