Shiplap accent wall for under $100

I’ve had this shiplap wall project pop up over on our Facebook page several times over the last few months where people would tag it or comment. So even though, we did this 3 years ago….I thought I would write out our steps on how we did this shiplap wall in our foyer.

When I say we, I mean my husband and I. He is my right hand when we go to starting on these projects. I just know what’s in my head and have to convey that and plan out. He’s the one that makes it happen.

There are so many ways you could attempt this project, but these are the steps we used. I wanted to just add some character to our foyer. We had built our house in 2010 and added some features with our moulding with the columns in our foyer and used a trick on adding crown moulding. When you are building and finally finish, you are just so thankful to be in. There are so many decisions to be made that by the time you are so close, you just want to be done and settled. This is what the wall looked like before we started.

Supplies for this project:

plywood sheets cut into 6″ strips (how much will depend on the size of your project)
1/4″ nails
nailer
paint of your choice
tape measurer
nickels (used as spacers)
pencil

We went to Lowes and bought 1/4″ red oak plywood in 4×8 sheets. I didn’t want a very heavy and thick board or anything with a lot of grain in the wood. He had Lowes cut down the sheets into 6″ strips. The was an 8′ wall in length with 9′ ceilings, so we only needed 3 sheets total. The sheets of plywood were about $20 a piece. So we had a total of $60 in the wood for this wall.

Anytime you can have Lowes or Home Depot cut your pieces down to a manageable size, DO IT! It saves so much time, getting out the tools to do it yourselves. Our Lowes doesn’t charge for the cuts, but I know some places do.

We measured where the studs were and he made our first cut to land on the stud. We then staggered each board after that, so the seams weren’t in a continuous line. To get the spacing right, we used nickels between the old board and new one to keep it consistent. We then nailed the boards to the studs using a nail gun with 1/4″ finish nails.

This is the wall finished after we nailed down everything. You can tell we didn’t have a lot of heavy grain with this or large knot holes. It looks really pretty like it is, but I wanted to paint it white.

This is the wall after puttying all the holes. Then we were ready for paint.

After painting the shiplap wall white after 2 coats. It really soaked up the paint. After the wood cured, I ended up painting another 2 coats a couple of weeks later. I used a paint and primer in one paint, but going back I would have use some Kilz or Zinsser primer. If you don’t like the way the cuts line up in the corners, you can use cove moulding to hide those.

The total cost of the project was $60 for the wood and paint would have been around $30, however, we had trim paint left over from another project. This is an awesome way to update a space for a small amount.

This is what the wall look like 3 years later. I love decorating this area of our house especially for the seasons! If you are a shiplap lover, make sure and pin this project for later!!