My plank wall, finally

Am I the only one who's been drooling over all the plank walls that pop up daily on Pinterest? I had plank walls pinned for forever, and a couple of months ago, showed it to hubby, totally expecting him to shoot it down (we don't exactly have the same decorating style. I like awesome stuff, and he likes the exact opposite). But somehow, we both agreed on this idea. Our finished project?

Before I started, I already knew the perfect wall for it. It's in our kitchen, viewable from the living room thanks to a very open floor plan. Most of the walls I saw online were either all white, or all wood tone. I wasn't sure which way to go, so thanks to the magic that is photoshop, I shopped them both up. 

First, I tried it with natural planks, but
there wasn't enough personality for me.

Yup, not feeling the white either. Yuck. 









So I talked to hubby about doing a mix of boards, almost like we found pieces of wood, each one a different paint/stain, and he agreed it was the personality I was looking for. 

There are enough plank tutorials online that I'm not going to walk you through every single step. Cut the wood, work your paint magic, nail it up. But a couple of helpful tips for ya. I got my wood at Home Depot, I believe it was called plywood sheeting. Anyway, it was $11-13 a sheet. Now, I will say to either A. pre-measure and make sure you buy enough wood in the first place, or B. pay attention to what wood you bought the first time so you can buy the same kind the next time. I did not buy enough wood the first time, so when I went back and got one more sheet, it was slightly thinner than my first set. But I rolled with it, and figured if I was going for the "reclaimed wood" look, then having them be different thicknesses wasn't a huge deal. You can kind of see it in this pic, the darker wood from the lower left corner, under the long, natural color plank is slightly thicker. But hey, we're going to roll with it. 

My boards were cut at 5 inches, across the 4 foot wide side (the wood I bought was 4x8). Now, it might be up to your Home Depot employee if they'll cut it at 5 inches. Their safety rules say that they can't, but after talking to a few employees, it basically came down to the employee and if they wanted to or not. 

I did not use any glue on this, figuring that if we ever got tired of it, or sold the house, I didn't want the wall to be ruined. What I did do is use screws and nails on each corner, and then I did a line of finishing nails where the studs were. Since it's cheaper wood, it did have a bit of a bow to it. No biggie. 

If you're totally organized, you could probably lay out all the wood in your garage, figure where each color should be, paint/stain/sand all the boards at one time, and then nail them up on the wall. I do not, however, work like that. I would do one line at a time, figure out what color I'd need next, and then paint/sand/stain/whatever. I did a mix of stained boards, boards left natural, some painted, some painted and sanded. Some of the boards came with some letters stamped on the wood, and yup, I left those on there. Plus, any of the wood that had knots in it I put knot side up. Again, personality and texture, right?

I do have one more thing to do to make this space "done". I bought this light fixture, and just need to have someone install it. Someone, meaning not me, since I want to move it over 6 inches so it's centered over the table, and ya know, don't want to get electrocuted or burn the house down. We're going for an "industrial chic" vibe in the house, so I thought this was perfect. 

And what's a good blog post without a photobomb by a certain husband when you're trying to take pics....

Nerd. 

Partying at craft-o-maniac.