Feature Wall in the Upstairs Living Room

Happy Sunday!  Who is ready for some football?!?!  I just finished up the latest project so I could starting getting food prepped for the two games today- cuz let's be honest it's ALL ABOUT THE FOOD.  

This project was super quick and easy and gives just a little bit of something on a very blank wall.  This wall to be exact.  

It's the back wall in the upstairs living room.  I had planned to make another wood art piece for this wall.  But the wall is 12' wide and the piece would have to be huge in order to "fit" the wall and not look weird.  Which also means it would be heavy as a mofo.  I still have plans for the wood art, it'll just go on another wall up there.  

A friend got me following one of her friends on Insta- @athomewithmadeline and she is also a DIY female homeowner who gets shit done.  I saw one of her posts where she did a simple wood wall treatment in her living room and it made a huge difference.  

{Courtesy of Instagram- athomewithmadeline}

It immediately made me think of the above wall in my house.  I didn't want anything too crazy because the focus is the black tv/bookcase wall.  But this bare white wall needed just a little something.  Some texture, some depth, something.  This, I thought, would be perfect.  

I did some math first to see how far apart the boards would need to be and how much wood I'd need.  Then I headed to the store to get the 1x2x8 boards that I'd be using.  Three trips later- cuz apparently this board was super popular and was sold out at two stores- RIDICULOUS- I finally had 20 boards.  

Friday night I started painting the boards.  Does my Friday night make you jealous- super popular over here.  Whomp Whomp.  I was able to fit 8 boards on my island at a time.  I got two coats on those boards and let them dry over night.  Then on Saturday morning I grabbed all of the tools and went upstairs to get to work.  

First up was pulling all of the furniture away from the wall.  Then came time to mark it.  Premeasuring and marking made this go much quicker.  

The two lines were the outsides of where the two boards would go.  I went back downstairs and grabbed the 8 painted boards and brought them up.  I glued each of the backs of them and nailed them in with my nail gun.  All the while making sure everything remained level all the way up the wall.  Didn't need the wall to look wonky when it was all finished.  Here are the first three sets of boards.  I basically used a piece of the same 1x2 in between each of the two boards as a spacer- but still made sure it was level as I nailed them in.  

I continued until I had all of the boards up.  There was only one spot that took a little longer to do- as a board went right over an outlet.  

You can see the spacer in the far right set of boards.  This made it very easy to install the second board of the set.  

As you can see- painting the rest of the boards first went out the window.  I knew I'd have to do at least one other coat of paint with the boards on the wall so I just decided to paint the rest already on the wall.  It was also me being impatient and wanting to get all of the boards on the wall to see how it was going to look.  Impatient really is my middle name.  

At the end of the night, I had at least one coat of paint on each board and had caulked all of the seams of where the boards met the wall.  This makes a world of difference. 

See how there is a bit of a gap on the right board as it's attached to the wall?  Then in the below photo- BAM it's gone?  

It's definitely a needed step in the process but man was it a pain in the ass.  I ended the night like this...

Can you see where I stopped painting after the caulk had dried?  From the left- the first 4 sets had a final coat of paint on them.  Just to the right of the lamp globe and to the end of the wall didn't have their final coat on them.  Big difference.  

This morning I finished up the rest of the boards and put the room back together.  

With all of the wood feature walls I've seen- and believe me I've seen a lot since I love them!- I hadn't seen one like this.  Most have a chevron pattern or aren't a pattern at all.  I love them all.  If I had a 1,000 walls in my house I'd have many of them with these wood feature walls.  But this one design was perfect for this wall.  It's just simple enough to make a difference but not so in your face that it takes away from the wall unit.