In a previous post, I mentioned that we decided to use a faux shiplap on our kitchen walls. We are loving the look and the cost! I thought I would give you a little more information on how we accomplished this DIY project, without spending a ton of money.
Real shiplap boards are expensive. One 8ft by 8in board cost $8.56. We used 8ft by 4ft plywood underlayment cut into 8ft by 8in strips. Each large sheet of plywood was $14. A sheet gave us 6 boards, which means every 8ft by 8in board cost us roughly $2.33. Definitely an economical choice for shiplap.
Before getting started, I read numerous articles (like this one) about using plywood as a faux shiplap. Everyone recommended having the boards cut down to size at Lowes for free. However, our local Lowe’s would not make any cuts below 12 inches. So, we went to Home Depot. Same story. We ended up buying 10 sheets of plywood and cutting them by ourselves at home with a circular saw. Although it was not difficult, this process was waaaay more time consuming than we had anticipated.
After cutting down our boards, we had to sand down the rough edges. This process also took much longer than I expected. I probably spent 4 to 5 hours sanding. Very tedious and tiring work. When I finally finished, the boards were smooth and ready to be hung. After all of our hard work prepping the boards, I was ready to see my vision finally come to life.
The following morning, we got to work hanging the faux shiplap boards. Of course, we immediately hit a snag. The nail gun we borrowed from a friend did not have enough power to drive the nails all the way into the boards. We decided to rent a more powerful nail gun. John headed off to the store, and returned an hour later with a new $300 nail gun. For a frugal project, I definitely wasn’t expecting that expense. But hopefully we’ll get good use out of it over the next few years.
So, we FINALLY started hanging the boards with our fancy new nail gun. We used nickles to maintain the gaps between the shiplap boards. It wasn’t hard to mount the boards, but it was very time consuming. The process took much longer than we expected (have you noticed a theme). It took about 4 days to finish the entire room. I should mention that we shiplapped every nook and cranny of the kitchen, not just an accent wall.
We filled the corners and nail holes with spackle. This part was pretty easy. I used a wet rag to wipe away the excess spackle, so there was no sanding! Then it was time to prime and paint. We used one coat of Kilz Premium 3 primer and two coats of white Benjamin Moore paint in an eggshell finish. The most annoying part of painting was removing the excess paint that built up between the boards. I kept a paring knife handy to clean out the spaces. It worked like a charm.
I am sooooo in love with my new walls! The lines are so clean and crisp. And the white paint makes the space feel light and airy. Although the project ended up being a ton of work, it was definitely worth all of the time and effort.