DIY Board & Batten Entryway
/This DIY is one of my favorite projects we’ve done to-date. It totally elevated our entryway, all while making it so much more functional.
If you’ve ever lived in a home or apartment without a large entryway or coat closet near the entry, you know the struggle that is piled up coats, hats, umbrellas, and shoes — and it’s even worse if you have a dog with their leash, collar, doggie bags, and more.
Well, we were definitely there 😅 For a while we had a not-so-cute coat rack and old hand-me-down bookshelf as placeholders until I figured out what I wanted to do with the space (and until we could budget funds to change it!). I think the before and after speaks for itself — so much more appealing to the eye!
the inspiration
This project vision started out when I saw this reel from someone I follow on Instagram. I immediately knew this was the perfect solve for our entryway! And it looked easy… but let me tell you, it was a lot more work than I thought 😂 But isn’t that always what happens with DIY projects?!
What made this project particularly difficult is that our house was built with some decorative trim on the stairwell, so we needed to match the width and depth of not only that trim, but also the existing baseboard to make sure the additional wood pieces weren’t sticking out from the wall at uneven depths. So it took us a good while at home depot to even find the right trim size and then when we did, it was pre-painted, which wasn’t ideal since we then needed to sand them all and re-paint to match our wall color on some pieces, and our trim color on others. Unless you can find the exact right color on pre-painted wood, I’d always recommend finding raw wood pieces so you save yourself from having to sand, which was by far the most time-consuming and annoying part of the process.
We didn’t have really any tools we needed for this project, but we knew we wanted to continue to do more house projects in the future, so we decided to invest in a few tools we knew we’d use again and again.
the tools
Of course, you’ll need your trim/boards and paint of choice, but you’ll also benefit from some tools. From left to right:
Brad Nailer (one of my favorite tools! easily nails trim into walls without leaving much of a trace)
Electric Sander (so much faster than hand sanding with paper!)
Circular Saw (to cut down your trim/boards to perfect size)
Liquid Nails (put this on the back of the boards first and then use the brad nailer to fully secure them)
Caulking (this helps cover up the nails from the Brad Nailer and is also used to fill in gaps along the sides and top/bottom of the boards to create a cohesive look from board to wall. A little goes a long way!)
Level (to make sure your boards are straight!)
Caulking gun (makes application easier and can be used for both liquid nails and caulking!)
the process
Once all the boards were cut down to perfect size, it felt like the project was on a roll. The process we followed was:
Paint the wall
Cut down the boards to size
Sand all the boards
Secure boards to wall with Liquid Nails and then Brad Nailer
Paint all boards after they’re on the wall
Caulk over the nails and on all sides
Paint touch-ups
Add the decorative hooks
Done!
One of the hardest decisions, aside from figuring out the best trim boards to match what was already in our house, was the paint color for the top board! In the initial video I was inspired by, she painted all the boards the same color as the part of the wall behind them, which made for a really cool cohesive look. BUT, I knew I wanted to keep the baseboard the same color as the rest of the downstairs for consistency, so there was already one part that was going to be different from the blue.
So then the next thing we were considering was — should we paint the top blue or should we keep it consistent with the white trim that already exists for the stairwell? You can see Tim holding up the blue option below. We ended up keeping both the baseboard and top board white and I’m so glad we did! Feels very cohesive with the rest of the entryway.
I’m super proud of this project and I hope it inspires you to tackle one of the projects on your DIY list! If we can do this (this felt BIG to us), so can you!
the sources
From left to right:
Uttermost Rora 52"W Natural Woven Banana Plant Console Table
Seagrass Console Table (I don’t know much about the linked store, but this is the exact table we got at Pottery Barn — it’s discontinued at PB!)
My artwork is from Home Goods, but this one felt surprisingly similar!
Similar gold hooks
I can’t track down our exact lamp (it’s from a cute little shop in Bend, OR), but I also love this one and this one!
Similar vase (mine is from Magnolia last year)