Adding Board and Batten

January 16, 2013

There are all kinds of tutorials out there on how to install Board and Batten. Like the one that Shelley & Cason at House of Smith's did or like Emily over at Decor Chick did.

In fact, I did my son's room last year, so I honestly don't remember where I got the exact instructions from, but as I look at Emily's, I am beginning to think that I did follow her directions. :)

Here is the progress of Bubba's room. When we moved into the house, ALL the walls were white. A nice blank canvas. His nursery walls were inspired from his bedding. The colors and the patterns.

We didn't know what sex our baby was, so I didn't want to decorate until after the baby was born.

We washed the walls really good with some TSP: Pre-Paint Surface Preparation. Then I did 3 coats of primer to cover up all the designs. Stripes, polka dots, etc. I put more effort into covering up the bottom half of the room because I knew the color going over the blue was going to be darker and I wasn't too worried about it and we were doing white on the bottom half.

I followed Emily's instructions step by step. Using my lattice as the battens, and the casing as the boards on the top. Make sure that your Boards on top are level and that your lattice aka Batten is also level on the sides. This project was my first introduction to using my husband's nail gun. After I tried hammering a few of the lattice into the wall, and became very frustrated the Mister broke out the nail gun for me. Uh?!?! Aaawwweesoommee!!! (Those of you that know me, know I was just singing that, too) I was nailing everything! I loved it!

My next step was to fill in all the nail holes with the wood putty. I just used white wood putty because we already had it, and because I was going to be painting the whole lower half the room white anyway.

After I was done with the wood putty, I went around and put in caulking in all the areas that it needed and smooth it out.

I did the wood putty a couple of times, just to make sure I got all the holes. After that was completed I sanded down every single piece of lattice and I sanded all the casing. This was my first big project that I've ever done and my hubby was working so much, that he wasn't really at home to help me out. He did peek in when he was home and gave his input and help 'guide' me to completion. :)

I painted about 3 coats of paint on the bottom half of the room. I wanted it good and covered.

Yes, this was time consuming! Yes, I was getting tired of working on his room, each night after work and on the weekends! Yes, Bubba was getting tired of sleeping in his sister's room and yes, she was tired of having a roommate! Yes, I was getting cranky! Yes, it was all worth it!

Because look at it now! I absolutely LOVE the bright green. The color is by Sherwin Williams and it's called Overt Green.

I also took down all the brown doors. It just made the room so dark, and we are really trying to update the house. All new white closet and bedroom doors. I also added all the white trim around the closet, door, and window.