Let’s Install Board & Batten

As you may have read in my post about the laundry room window and the staircase remodel, our downstairs section of the house is VERY dark! Adding the window in the laundry room made such a difference that I really wanted to rip out the fiberglass surround tub in the downstairs bathroom, add a window and have a new, nicer tub with tiled walls installed! However, doing so would be more $$ than I was ready to spend so I searched around for options to lighten the bathroom in an economical way.

Inspiration & Ideas

I had seen several ideas on Pinterest and decided that board & batten, which is a type of wainscoting, would be fun to try in this room. I also thought that if I painted it white and added white trim at the ceiling line, it would help lighten the room. There are many tutorials on how to install this technique. If your walls are not textured, you can simply add 1″ x 3″ or 1″ x 4″ pieces of wood or MDF board to your wall vertically then add a horizontal top rail.

Before pics

Wall painting

I knew that changing the brown wall paint to cream would help lighten the room. Years ago, my son had painted this wall with a sun, moon and stars to match the shower curtain. At that time, the wall was painted navy blue. I don’t have a picture of what it looked like when it was new. About 5 years after he painted the art, for some reason, I decided to ‘lighten’ the wall by swirling cream over the blue – not a great look! Two years later, I replaced the blue (with the swirly design) with brown, carefully outlining his artwork to preserve it. I also changed the gold paint on the faces with cream. With this bathroom update, it was time to paint it again but was a bit nervous about it. Since I wasn’t sure how long it would take, I decided to paint this wall and update the artwork before installing the board & batten to the lower section of the walls. You can see that I have started to repaint the brown wall. I will be keeping the artwork.

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Using a paint roller, I applied two coats of cream and was able to cover most of the wall quickly. I left a buffer area around all the pieces of artwork and then used a small artist brush to cover the brown closest to the artwork. Once the brown was covered, I enhanced all the outlines of the artwork as well as my son’s signature with gold & bronze craft paint. To help these art elements pop, I replaced the brown on the moon & sun faces and stars with a light & dark teal.

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Shopping for supplies

With the wall painted, it was time to decide what materials I would need for the board & batten. I headed to Lowes and Home Depot to see what they had for covering the wall texture. I knew that my other option was to sand the texture but I did not want drywall dust everywhere. At Home Depot, I found 1/8” hardboard to cover the texture. The dimensions are 4′ x 8′ and it was $14 per sheet. It is flat, smooth, and super thin so I thought it would work perfectly. I had measured my walls prior to heading to find materials and knew that 3 sheets would be needed for this project.

To help save on cost, I decided to use MDF as opposed to wood. For the uprights and crossbars, I used 1″ x 4″ with 1″ x 3″ in the corners which would keep the consistency of the look. For the trim around the door, along the ceiling, and for the baseboards, instead of MDF, I used hemlock as I have in the rest of the house where I have replaced trim. I also bought 4 wooden rosettes, 2 for the trim around the door and 2 for the trim along the ceiling. For the top rail, I bought 1″ x 2″ wood trim & a 1″ decorative trim.

Board & Batten

Time to install the wainscoting – board & batten style. The first step in installing wainscoting is measuring your wall space to ensure your upright boards are spaced evenly. My longest uninterrupted wall area is 9′ 4″ so I measured the center of the wall then worked out toward either side. Each section was going to be 26 1/2″. Once the uprights were installed, the open area became 24″. The next decision was what the height of the wainscot would be? I decided to make it easy by using the width of the hardboard. I was removing the old baseboards and planned to set the hardboard on the floor so the height of the wainscot was going to be 4′.

Baseboards removed

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To install the wainscot, using a skill saw, I cut two pieces of the hardboard into 56″ lengths, set each piece against the 9″ wall and used the nail gun to secure them to the wall. I decided not to use construction glue in case I want to change the look in the future. The hardboard is firm and set flush with the wall so this method worked very well! After the long wall was done, I continued installing the hardboard to all the other wall areas.

All backing installed

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The next step is to install the baseboards & trim around the door and along the top of the walls. What I love about incorporating rosettes into the door trim is that there is no need to miter the trim at the corners of the top of the door. The ducting for the heater runs through this bathroom, so I had to find a narrow piece of trim to use at the top of the door. Before I started on this project, I painted all the trim, both MDF & hemlock with two coats of Behr Semi-gloss white interior paint. I planned to do any touch-ups once the wood was installed and the nail holes were puttied. I installed the trim and baseboards by attaching them with my nail gun, then puttied nail holes (which are small) and caulked any gaps. Since the 1″ crossbar was going to ‘sit’ on the baseboards, I needed to ‘beef’ up the baseboard so that the top of the baseboard was wider. I chose another baseboard trim and installed it upside down on top of the first baseboard to obtain the width needed to match the 1″ depth of the MDF cross board.

Ceiling trim

After the baseboards & door trim were installed, I installed the ceiling trim. This trim was pretty simple to install. I had three walls and a short wall to cover and only 6 miter cuts to make. The 7 1/4″ compound miter saw that I have makes these cuts quick and easy. To install the trim, I use my 18 gauge brad nail gun and compressor – they also make this type of project so much easier than a hammer and nails! After the boards were nailed to the top of the walls, I filled in the nail holes with my favorite wood putty by DAP, gave the areas a light sand with a sanding block then did the touch-up painting. Since my walls are almost never even, when the rest of the project was done, I caulked along both the ceiling and wall lines to fill in the gaps.

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Now the fun part! Installing the crossbars, uprights, and top rail of the board & batten! First, the long uprights by the shower went up then the crossbar along the top of the baseboard & top of the hardboard followed by the short uprights. When you install the uprights, in each corner of your room you will need to use a 1″ x 3″ (as opposed to a 1″ x 4″) board on one of the walls; doing so will keep your dimensions even.

Crossbars installed

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When I installed the cross bars, there were two areas that needed special attention. The first area was behind the toilet where the plumbing connects through the wall. I wanted to ensure that there would be access in case the plumbing needed fixed in the future. The next area was around the light switches.

The uprights were easy to cut and install. Each was the same 34″ length so I could cut them all at once. After making sure the spacing was correct on the long wall, I used the nail gun to attach them. The only other spacing I had to pay attention to was behind the toilet as the other walls were too narrow to need the uprights spaced. With all the uprights in place, I trimmed the inside of each section with coving. Next up, the top rail. The trim I chose for the top rail was a 1″ x 2″ piece of board. Once the top rail was nailed in place, I used a decorative piece of trim under it.

Uprights, coving, top rail installed

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Caulk & Touch ups

With all the wood/MDF installed, it was time to putty, caulk, touch up with paint. Are there things I would have done differently? As always, yes! But this project really lightened up the bathroom! I love the end result!

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Adding additional trim

After living with the board & batten for a while, I decided that it needed just a bit more trim. As you may know, when you work with wood, it’s rare when everything is plumb. There were boards that had just a bit of space or variance where the different boards met and, to be honest, it bugged me! The area that bugged me the most was at the bottom of the top crossbar.

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To fix this issue, all I needed was a 1/2″ strip of trim. I bought PVC molding for this fix for a couple of reasons: it was already white so I didn’t need to paint it and it was so lightweight that a bit of Elmer’s glue would hold it in place. Using my miter saw, I cut the pieces needed, applied a little glue, and used painter’s tape to hold them in place while they dried.

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The other section that bugged me was by the bathtub. I don’t know why I chose to place one long board at the edge of the wall instead of continuing the trim all the way to the corner. Having the trim split didn’t look right. I decided to add a little wooden rosette where the trim stopped. Boy, what a difference that made! I applied two coats of white paint then used my nail gun to attach it to the board.

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Adding these finishing touches took very little time and cost under $10. What a big difference they made in the look!

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Installing board & batten is an easy way to update your walls. If you don’t have heavy wall texture, you can just add uprights and a top rail. If you do have heavy wall texture and/or want a more elaborate look as I have, it just takes more trim and cutting.

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Let me know your thoughts

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Scroll down and leave a comment for me. Let me know what you think and if you have this type of stairwell & might try this upgrade.

Supplies & Tools

• Compound miter saw
• Skill saw
• Nail gun with compressor
• Caulk
• Wood putty
• Wood glue
• Construction glue *(optional)
• Painter’s tape
• Paint & paintbrush/roller
• Sanding block
• 1/8″ hardboard (if your walls are textured)
• 1″ x 3″ boards
• 1″ x 4″ boards
• 1″ x 2″ top board
• Coving
• Accent trim
• Wood rosettes
• Baseboard trim *(if replacing existing baseboards)

If you need supplies

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