Yesterday I revealed my new bright modern bohemian bedroom to you, and today starts the first of a few residual posts where I will be sharing some of the projects from the space. Today I am going to talk about how to plank a wall. I’ve discussed this before with our cedar hall closet/mudroom, and this project is very similar.
First of all, here are the tools and items needed for this project:
- Pencil
- Level
- Stud finder or good old fashioned knuckle on the wall
- Miter Saw
- Nail gun
- Nails for nail gun
- Jig saw
- Planking- this planking from Amazon is what we used and it’s a steal!
Now, before you can even begin preparations must take place. The professional way to do a wall like this would be to remove the baseboard and start from the bottom and then mount the baseboard on top. This planking is rather thin like our cedar planking, and honestly, it looks perfectly fine with the first board being mounted right above the baseboard, so we just did that. We are not professionals, and we are OK with imperfection. But if you like perfection, remove that sucker and then move on.
Next you want to find your studs. You can use a stud finder, or if your ears are in good shape you can trust them, knock on the wall, and find where it doesn’t sound so hollow. I went with the latter, knocking, and then measuring every 16″ and knocking again in that vicinity until I found the next stud. I marked all of the studs with a pencil, and then used a ruler to draw straight lines from the floor to the ceiling with my pencil. These will serve as the guide lines of where to insert your nail.
Now you are ready to start nailing that first plank! Start from the bottom with the “V” groove facing up. Place your plank on the wall and use a level to make sure your first plank sits level. Most often our homes are imperfectly built, so always use a level rather than using your floor line or baseboard to follow. Use your nail gun (mine works with a compressor, as most do) to insert your nails where your studs are, and also in the corner you started in. Give each board two nails per stud.
We purchased a new Bostitch nail gun for this project from Ace Hardware. It worked perfectly and I am pretty excited to go around my house nailing other things just for fun. #diybloggerissues
Anyhow, once you have your first plank in place, measure the space between the end of that plank and the wall carefully and cut your next board with the miter saw to that exact size. Measure carefully so that your plank fits flush. When you are ready to mount the next plank, use the level again before nailing.
Now moving up the wall, the V-groove of these planks fir with tongues on the other side. Place your next plank on the wall and insert it into the V of the plank below it, check the level, and nail into place.
As you can see we had outlets to work around, and when we got to these we just measured and used the jigsaw to properly notch these out. Make sure you measure around the plate cover or pull the outlet a little further out form the wall so that you can replace it.
Now, as you can see…. our wall is angled. This was a mathematical nightmare for us because the miter saw went to 50 degrees and we needed a 53 degree cut. you’d think if you cut a 37 degree in the opposite direction it would work, but it doesn’t. So I can’t tell you how we did this…. it was hurting my head and I put Chris to this task. And while he cut those angles, I took instagrams of the pretty wall’s progress, like this.
We made it all the way up to the top continuing as we had been doing, and when we got to the top the distance from the second to last row to the top was 3″ and our planks were closer to 4″. When you get to the top, measure carefully and use a jig saw (or table saw if you have one- I do not) to trim the planks down and make it right up to the top.
Because I decided in the end to keep the wood look of this wall, I didn’t worry about filling any nail holes. As you can see they are miniscule.
Because this wall was a mathematical problem for us, we felt true victory when we finished. We may have hugged, high fived and yelled “We did it!” a few times. It is NOT perfect, but we did it! As you can see not every board was perfectly placed and there are a couple of minor gaps like this:
I am debating weather or not I will caulk that space along the seams…. I truly like the more raw look. What do you think?
Overall we are thrilled with how this wall turned out…. with some fabulous tools from Ace Hardware, about $115 worth of pine planking, and 4 hours of nailing (3 of those 4 hours figuring out math), we have a wall we are proud of!
Sharing at TDC’s Monthly Before & After Party
