That plank wall...

After getting numerous questions about our wood plank wall in our dining room and entry way, I have decided to go ahead and write a post about it. Unfortunately, I don't have a good before picture of this wall because I wasn't planning on blogging about it at the time. Just imagine 1970s wallpaper covering the wall, with orange shag carpet, and a brass chandelier, and you'll get the picture. Here's a before shot that captures part of the dining room.

"Before" dining room/living room

This was probably the easiest project I did in our house because I was sitting on the couch the whole time! Haha! Jonas did this last year right after Boden was born. So as I was sitting holding this sweet little guy,

Boden 1 week

the big boys were working on our plank wall. We like to use the forced child labor method to get things done around here. No, just kidding, Bjorn was begging to help! So we put him to work painting some boards! As you can tell, he's concentrating hard!

Bjorn working hard!

Now, I don't really think you all need a full blown tutorial on how to do a plank wall. As my husband said, "If you can't figure out how to nail a board to the wall then you probably shouldn't try this". Haha! Probably a little politically incorrect but maybe still true. So, I'll just tell you a bit about what we did. We (Jonas) first painted over the wallpaper. The whole reason we decided to do the plank wall in the first place was because we didn't want to remove the wallpaper. Ha! We bought some cedar fencing planks from Home Depot, a variety of both 5 and 6 feet in length, and let them dry out in the house for a week. I would recommend letting them dry out even longer if you don't want gaps between the boards because even after a week, ours still shrunk up some. You can see the difference between the two pictures below. I don't mind though, I think it adds to the rustic-ness (I don't think that's a word) of it.

So after a week of sitting in the house, it was time to paint them. We used a variety of paint colors. Two of the colors were left over paint from our fireplace and the boys room. The dark gray/brown we used on the fireplace and is SW black fox, and the lightest gray is SW repose gray. The other three colors are metallic spray paint. I don't remember the brand but we used the colors champagne, silver, and copper I believe. Once those were all dry, my husband started nailing them on the wall with a Brad gun using a staggered pattern. He had a bit of cutting to do around the outlets etc. and ends of the wall which he used a combination of a miter saw, table saw, and jigsaw for depending on his need. Once he got started on actually putting the boards up, it probably took him a day or two to finish. I love it! It was totally worth all the work he did! Haha! I really do have a great husband! I have finally ordered dining room chairs but they are back ordered until the end of March. When I get them in, then I'll put up some pictures of the whole dining room. Yay!

Plank wall going in!

Plank wall finished!

Entry Way

This was picture was taken a while ago and therefore the reason for the fall decorations. I'm still working on how I really want to decorate it so I won't show you a current picture because it's rather bare! Haha! Anyway, hope you all are having a great week!