Kitchen Board and Batten

On my quest to up the architectural ante of our house, the walls of our eat-in kitchen were my next victim. I've already added shadowbox molding to our dining room, which...I know...you haven't been shown yet! I hate that it's taken this long to share a dining room update but there's one last piece I'm waiting to find before I can reveal. So, for now, I've got a super easy and cheap (for me, really cheap) update to our kitchen with adding faux board and batten that added a cottage coziness and architectural interest. I was able to do the whole shabang in just a few hours, most of that spent waiting on paint to dry.

This is what our eat-in kitchen/sitting area/breakfast nook looked like before we moved in...

And after we got ahold of it...

BEFORE:




And here it is...

AFTER:



It reminds me of a little cafe!


I can't wait to see how the white board and batten pops against the floors when we have them refinished and stained dark chocolate.

To complete this project, I used:

About 60 feet of lattice, cut in 25.5 inch pieces
1 quart Behr "Linen White" Semi-gloss paint
1 quart Kilz Primer
finishing nails
paintable caulk, 1 can
caulking gun
painter's tape
Level to ensure vertical placement of lattice
tape measure

For the battens, I purchased pieces of lattice from Home Depot, found in the trim and molding section. I eye-balled the room before I went and knew I wanted roughly 30 25.5 inch pieces placed 14-16 inches apart, depending on the outlet placement and corners. So, I just bought how ever many 12 foot pieces I needed to make that work and had the guy cut it, free of charge, to the right length of 25.5 inches for me.

Somehow the checkout girl miscalculated the length and charged only $3.75 for ALL the wood when I estimated that it would be about $25. But we bought so many other things that trip so we didn't notice until we looked over the receipt after. See what I mean by really cheap?!

Traditional board and batten is composed of flat pieces of board, separated by long, thin battens. But when you just place the lattice pieces of wood, or battens, on the wall and paint it all white, the wall serves as the board without actually adding all that wood.

And usually, the board and batten has a little shelf chair rail and a flat baseboard. Most tutorials you find will feature adding all of that to create a board and batten effect on the wall, but I already had chair rail molding and baseboard molding so I just placed the lattice pieces between the existing woodwork. The lattice was thin enough as not to stick out beyond the baseboard or chair rail at all.

First, I painted the wall below the chair rail a shade of creamy white in semi-gloss finish.



Then, I used Liquid Nails on the back of a piece of lattice and placed it on the wall vertically between the two moldings.



I used painters tape to hold the lattice to the wall while the Liquid Nails dried and measured about 16 inches in distance, placing a small piece of tape to mark the spot for the next lattice piece.

After all pieces of wood were placed, I went to each piece to fix any gaps that remained between the wood and the wall.



I used paintable caulk (or painter's caulk) to fill in along the gaps for a seamless finish.



The distance between each piece varied some to accommodate for outlets and corners. No exact science was needed. Lastly, I hammered a small finishing nail to the top and bottom of each board for secure placement and painted all the pieces with the same white paint.



The caulk made even the pieces that were off a tad in length fit perfectly. It's not traditional board and batten, but it's EXACTLY what I wanted! I think continuing the white from the cabinets into the sitting area made it all more cohesive.



If you're interested in adding board and batten to your home, Centsational Girl, The Nester, My Blessed Life, and Decor Chick have all given great tutorials on their room projects. But if I can do it, anyone can!

Thanks for stopping by...Leave me a comment so I'll know you were here!

~Katie

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