Board and Batten Accent Wall (ORC Week 6)

Looking for board and batten inspiration? This traditional wall trim adds character to a builder grade home, and sets the tone for our coastal dining room!

Board and Batten Accent Wall (ORC 6) - Coastal decor, dining room inspiration, beige paint, neutral wall color, BM Classic Gray, griege paint

Welcome friends, it’s time for a One Room Challenge update. This week I’m excited to share our board and batten accent wall that was installed this past weekend! It adds so much character, and gives our dining room a high end look. You can create an accent wall on your own if you like DIY projects! We hired a friend to do ours, but I will share a few links to tutorials that helped me in the planning stages. I’ll also be sharing the paint color and the board sizes and measurements we used. In case you missed any weekly updates, here they are:

Week 1: Modern Coastal Dining Room Mood Board
Week 2: Pretty Toy Storage
Week 3: DIY Aged Stone Vase
Week 4: Vintage Rug in the Dining Room
Week 5: Cancelled

As I’m sure you are aware, the past few weeks have been especially challenging for our country. The One Room Challenge paused last week to stand with the black community and to mourn George Floyd and the racial injustice that persists today. While we are continuing the ORC this week, it is important to keep the conversation about anti-racism going and consider actions we each can take. Check out this list of resources if you are looking for somewhere to begin. You may also see my saved highlights on Instagram to discover BIPOC creators and designers as I continue to share!

Board and Batten Inspiration & Plans

While planning our board and batten wall, I saved a lot of inspirational designs! Here are a few of my favorites. (Check out my wall trim Pinterest board for more.)

I loved how each of these designs took up the whole wall (rather than two thirds like some board and batten) but felt more casual than a grid wall. Ultimately I decided to go with one horizontal board a bit higher than a traditional chair rail.

Here is my haphazard, not-to-scale drawing that I shared with our friend who would be doing the install for us. We mostly stuck to this drawing, except that he ended up ripping down a board to five inches for both the baseboard and the top board (beneath the crown). Then he placed the center horizontal board 35 inches from the top of the baseboard (40 inches from the floor).

The tricky part of this plan was the area to the right of the window. It was too small for there to be a gap between the window trim and the final batten, so he used a thicker board to fill out the entire space. Since I would be painting everything one color, we thought it would end up looking alright. (It does!) The window trim on the other three sides is made of 1x4s, the same as the majority of the design.

Paint Color and Materials

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Simple Board and Batten (ORC 6) - Coastal decor, dining room inspiration, beige paint, neutral wall color, BM Classic Gray, griege paint

While I love the look of white board and batten, I knew that I wanted contrasting trim since our dining table is white. After some research and suggestions from you all on Instagram, I decided to go with Benjamin Moore Classic Gray. It is a light, neutral beige and I love the warmth it adds! I had the color matched at Home Depot in Behr Marquee paint, my favorite as it requires the fewest number of coats. (This took two since it is not a Marquee color).

As for materials, we used primed pine boards (instead of MDF) for added durability. Our dining room doubles as a play room and with kiddos running around and occasionally throwing toys, I wanted to make sure that our beautiful wall wouldn’t be easily dented 😉 Our friend purchased the materials but here are a few products to get you started if you are looking to tackle this project yourself!

Shop the look (Just scroll & tap an image!)

If you are looking for more detailed instructions for installing your own wall trim, here are a few posts that helped me in the planning stages: