DIY Board and Batten Reveal + Glidden Review
Woo to the hoo! It’s DIY board and batten reveal day!
If you missed out earlier this week, I revealed our foyer makeover and shared all of the details for part one of our DIY board and batten.
I’m so excited how this one turned out!
Last week, our foyer looked like this:
That shiplap wall added tons of character, but the front door…not so much. It was still very plain builder grade.
Our hallway connecting our foyer and living room was rather one-dimensional too. It was dark with no natural light and had no wow-factor at all.
On Sunday, this was our situation. Fresh bare board and batten just begging for a pretty paint job.
We spackled, caulked, and sanded all of the wood knots, seams, and nail holes to prep for a smooth finish.
I shot this prior to sanding. (Sanding is important, y’all.)
Then taped up our trim.
Olivia helped out too. Can you tell by those little tape pieces stuck on the wall? She calls them stickers. Bless.
Glidden Paint was so wonderful to send a gallon of paint to me to try out. This was the first time I’d ever used Glidden Paint Duo Paint + Primer after using many other brands before, and I’m sold on this one.
Staying under budget is really important to me in all of my projects (if you’ve been following for a while, you probably already know).
Glidden is inexpensive, but it didn’t behave like a cheap paint for me. I was really happy with the coverage, and the finish was really smooth. A great quality paint brush can make a huge difference (mine has seen a lot of action).
I used the color Crisp Linen White in a semi-gloss finish.
I started on the trim first, and I feathered it out as I went so I didn’t have a hard paint line showing.
Lola was my supervisor, as usual. She’s my naptime DIY buddy.
Once the trim was done, I started rolling with a mini roller.
I always like using a plastic grocery bag as a paint tray liner for quick clean-up.
The paint is low VOC so, thankfully, it didn’t stink up our whole house. There was no smell at all.
I ended up doing two coats since I was painting directly over rather dark wall paint and wood. It dried really quickly though, so as soon as I was finished with one coat, I could start on the next.
After painting our entire hallway and foyer with all of those little trim details, I still had a cup or two of paint left in my gallon can. You can see lots of reviews from other DIYers on their Ratings and Reviews site. (I usually like to do my homework on that kind of thing.)
The whole process was tedious but worth it! I lurv our hallway now!
It’s finally a space Robert and I are proud of and flows so well into the rest of our house.
It adds so much charm alongside our $80 wood beam doorway.
Next stop on our to-do list is painting that front door something other than white. What color do you think we should do? I’m leaning toward something gray or blue but I’m stuck.
For comparison’s sake, can we check out a real before picture here? I shot this on closing day in December 2013.
We’ve come a long way in less than two years.
Our $35 wagon bench we found on Craigslist pops so beautifully against our shiny new trim.
We’ll be adding hooks and a little art above the bench eventually too.
If you ever want to go the DIY route for some board and batten yourself, be sure to pin this post:
Hi! It’s amazing the difference the b&b made in your house. It’s so light and bright and airy now. We are getting ready to do the same in our two story foyer and down the hall into the kitchen. We are doing ours 6ft in height. I was planning on doing satin, alabaster for the paint. Now reading your blog I’m confused! Should we do it semi gloss and bright white like our baseboards? We just shiplapped our laundry room and kitchen island base and painted Alabaster. I was thinking it would all flow, but now I don’t know what to do!
Since you already have the Alabaster in other parts of your house, I think either one will work. 🙂 I do think the creamy white of Alabaster is beautiful and looks a bit more antique.
Are the walls of the board and batten textured? My wife and I are looking at doing something similar but our walls have texture on them. Trying to figure out what to do with it! Thanks!
Hi, Josh! No, our walls aren’t textured, so unfortunately board and batten for your house would probably be more expensive than ours. This tutorial might work better for you: http://www.rachelteodoro.com/2016/03/true-board-and-batten-tutorial-on.html
Where did you get your tree topiary by your bench
I got it from IKEA but I think they’ve since been discontinued, unfortunately.
I have a question.. do you have a tapered trim at the bottom? If so how did you get the boards to line up flush with the baseboard.
Hi Nicole! We didn’t taper our trim, but in hindsight, I would have cut our battens (the vertical boards) at an angle at the bottom with a miter saw.
Just a quick question! it looks like your baseboard has a little dip on the top just like mine, did you just put the board straight on top of it and leave a little gap or did you taper the boards on the bottom? i was trying to zoom in on some of your photo’s but i just couldn’t get close enough.
We totally cheated and just put the boards right on top of our existing ones. We’re hoping to eventually change all of our baseboards to a Craftsman style. In hindsight, I would have at least tapered them but our miter saw was acting up and we nixed that plan. If you can though, I would taper them.