Faux Board and Batten with Picture Ledge Guest Room Reveal

A few weeks ago, Rusty and I had planned to pressure wash the house, porch, deck, stairs and fence.  Then we needed to seal all of those surfaces.  Well - on top of it topping out at almost 100 degrees that week, our weather app also forcasted rain on and off.  Sooooo, instead of signing up for all of that fun, we decided to tackle an entirely new project that wasn't even on our to do list for this summer (typical, right?!).

I have pinned so many different pictures of the faux board and batten, that I knew I just had to jump on board of this blogosphere trend (yes, I know I am about a year late... don't blame me, I was homeschooled).   All it took was mentioning it the night before when Rusty was about 3 beers deep out of his build-you-own six pack.  See, it's all about strategy.

Note:  This is not a tutorial!  Here is a great resource if you need one.  Scroll to the bottom of Centsational Girl's blog post, and you will see about six or eight hyper links for more tutorials in all different styles!

Enjoy some before and afters:

The color we chose was Svelte Sage by Sherwin Williams.  It was a left over can that we used under the chair rail in the dining room.  The good thing about this project is that if we want to change the color, there will be very little painting!  I'm thinking this room will be great for little mini makeovers when I get bored.

It's about 60" high.  I just stood next to the wall and Rusty held up his hand for me to step away and see if it looked right.  It looked about right.  My only tip would be to not cut your room in half and try to let your board and batten fall either 1/3 or 2/3 up the wall.  Mine is right about 2/3 of the way up the wall.

Here are the supplies you will need:

1.  1"x4"

2.  1"x3"

3.  1+3/8" Base (163 at Home Depot)

4.  1"x1 1/2"

Here is our order of operations when it came to the process.

1.  Mark a line where we wanted the top of the ledge to be.

2.  Paint everything under that line white.  We used a gallon of our trim paint (high gloss white by Sherwin Williams).  We figured that if this were real trim, it would be a high gloss white anyway.

3.  Put up the 1"x4" all around the room.

4.  Space out the batten strips anywhere between 16" and 17" inches.  This just depended on what divided best with the length of each wall as well as where outlets were.  We didn't want to split any outlets.  We also started each corner with a batten strip to keep things structured and continuous.

5.  Attach the 1"x3" picture ledge.

6.  Attach the trim.

7.  Caulk and fill in nail holes.

8.  Paint a coat of high gloss over everything.

Here is a picture of the bottom of out batten pieces.  I know that some blogs replace their baseboards to be as wide as the strips, but we kept our baseboards because they are much prettier than the replacement option.  It is just cut on a 45.

In some of the pictures, you can also see where we attempted to put up crown moulding.  We still have to go back and caulk and touch up paint, but the crown was free from a friend, so we are happy!

So - Some things we still need to do with this room...room arrangement, bedding, curtains, accessorize.  I am thinking a little bench at the end of the bed for a tray to rest on and a little throw.  I will put some frames and other tchotchkes on the picture ledge.  I am thinking about two matching lamps to flank the bed in a nickel or silver.  Maybe a night stand on one side under the lamp and a wooden chair painted and chipped up in an accent color under the lamp on the other side acting as a table.  Maybe stack some books in the floor and even prop one of my ladders up against the wall (chipped up in the same accent color?).

Overall - we LOVE the look!  I am not ashamed to leave that door open in the hallway anymore.  I bet we spent about $150.00 on the 10'x11' room and worked on it for maybe 10 hours.

What do you think?!  You can come be my guest now!

Linking up with:
Making The World Cuter
I Heart Naptime
Skip To My Lou
Sumo's Sweet Stuff