My room finally has lighting. We’ve had this chandelier put away for months. What do you think? My husband thought it would be too big, but I insisted, there isn’t a such thing. It doesn’t obscure being able to watch t.v., I sleep on the right side. I am still updating the room in terms of decor and it isn’t complete. For example, I am aiming for a leaner mirror behind the pink ottoman.

This is the process we took to install the board and batten: We purchased everything at Home Depot. The big white boards were $15 each and the pine boards, it was so long ago, I don’t remember, but I will update this soon.

Step 1:

Measure so you know how much board to purchase and how many of the solid pine wood boards to buy.

Step 2:  

Do not do what we did! WARNING! It is far better to place the white boards facing upwards and simply cut 2 feet off than doing what we did, which is trying to save money and we placed them long wise creating a huge line we had to fill. For this step you must determine how tall you want them. We wanted 6 feet tall. We used a jigsaw to cut. Note: It is very messy since this is particle board. In fact, it is horrible for your health to breath this stuff in.

Step 3:

Measure the outlets you will have to cut out.

Step 4:

Place against the wall to make visualize how everything is going to look. Step 5:

Apply Liquid Nails to the back of the boards when you are SURE you are ready to stick them on. Then nail them in with a nail gun.

Step 6: 
Add your base board and chair rail. We also added trimming around the windows–or casing.

Step 7: If you get to a rounded corner, like we did–bullnose corner–then you will have to align your corners and add think strip to that corner and fill it in with wood filler. Step 8:

Cut your wood boards to size. You can use the particle board and cut it to pieces, but we wanted to use these wood boards.

Step 9:

Nail the sticks or batten in.

Step 10:

Fill in everything with wood filler including all nail holes, etc. Then sand, then fill, then sand, then fill, then sand. . .and don’t forget to caulk the as well. We caulked the chair rail, baseboard and each and every batten. Any cracks must be caulked.

Step 11:

After sanding, paint. Some people prime, we bought paint from Lowe’s. It was Valspar Ultra Zero VOC that includes paint and primer in Ultra White, I believe.

Step 12: 

Admire.

Pros: It is less expensive than real wood or hiring someone.

Cons:

1) I really wish I could’ve used the super skinny, real wood, panels I recently found. Perhaps the rest of the house.

2) The boards do have a strong VOC smell.

What I’ve learned:

1) It is far better to stand them up and place the batten in between each separated white board than have to fill in that line we had to fill in. It will look smoother and finely executed.

2) It took us 2 months!!! Yes! Not one weekend as we thought. Why is it when you have big home projects, you end up having a birthday party, wedding, an event every single weekend? Why? It seems like you are dry for weeks, no parties, no events to attend and bam, all of a sudden you begin a project and you have people throwing events left and right.

3) Don’t lose patience. . .like I did. I went out and bought a paint spray gun and went crazy painting. I didn’t prepare the floors properly and I still have specs of paint on the wood floor. It drives me crazy. They do come off, but there are a lot of them. You can’t see them unless you pay attention, but it is like anything else, once you know they are there, you see it. For example, think, “Pink Zebra” now don’t. Stop thinking about that “Pink Zebra.” Why are you thinking about it? It’s hard isn’t it? LOL