Yikes, totally meant to post this yesterday but once I got my sweatpants on and settled into an NCIS marathon I totally forgot about it. Carry on.
One of the new things in our half bath is the board and batten treatment we added to the walls. We wanted to keep some visual interest since we lost the bright bold colors and modern lines when we changed out the vanity /vessel sink combo and we thought the best way to do that would be to add some fancy schmancy trim work.
This project is fairly simple but I’m not going to give any specific measurements or anything since that’s going to depend on your own space.
We used 1×4 and 1×6 primed pine boards from Home Depot for this project. We had planned on using MDF but couldn’t find what we wanted and using these pre-cut boards kept everything pretty straight. Side note: we decided to use the same boards as crown moulding and for the door trim on the inside of the bathroom to keep everything uniform.
First, we decided how high we wanted the top piece. This really came down to what was most convenient which ended up being just above the light switch. It gave us one less notch to cut plus I think the height helped balance out the dark navy on the top part of the wall.
We attached the top pieces (1×4) using a whole heck of a lot of nails. I wasn’t comfortable using liquid nails so we used our brad nailer and then Kyle went back and hammered in some longer nails at an angle to help hold everything together. Make sure to use a level to keep everything the same across the room but also check that it looks level to the eye (not always the same thing).
Next, we used the 1×6 as base board around the room. There’s not really a reason we used larger pieces here other than we liked the look. Feel free to use whatever size you want.
The last pieces we needed to add were the vertical slats. You probably noticed that the spacing varies between the short and long walls in our bathroom. We couldn’t find spacing we liked that worked on both walls so we decided to just go with what looked best on each set of walls (long vs short). Depending on how anal you are, the different spacing might bug you but it doesn’t bother us at all. Again, we used the brad nailer and then went back with longer, angled nails.
Originally, we left the outlet and vent flush with the wall but it looked super wonky, so Kyle built them both out to sit at the same depth as the trim…but I forgot to take a picture.
The last step was to fill/sand all of the nail holes, caulk the seams, and paint!
I think I ended up using three coats of off the shelf Valspar Ultra White from Lowe’s on the trim and walls to make sure everything was nice and even. I didn’t tape anything off because I’m a rebel and also I’m lazy and impatient and hate taking the time to tape. As long as you have a decently steady hand, you should be able to cut in with minimal screw ups, plus I finished the white paint first so that if I got any on the navy, it would be easier to paint over.
We probably spent around $100 on trim which is more than I would have liked but I think it’s worth it. We both really love how it looks in the room so that’s really all that matters. I’m hoping to have another post up later this week about our process for turning a dresser into a vanity and that should pretty much wrap up the half bath posts!
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