Oooh! A project!!

So here's what I did with my birthday money. I got inspired at this blog. Well, actually, this is kind of a trend that is everywhere on blogs these days, and I am a sucker for architectural details. Especially wainscoting of all kinds. My house has ZERO architectural detail. No moulding, nothing. That just means I get to add it all myself, right? Yeah!! I finally decided on a faux board and batten treatment for this wall, and I must say I am *in love* with it! It was actually very cheap and easy to do. I followed the instructions from this blog and did the cheap version.

This is my wall before. Just a plain wall, right?


Basically, here's what I did:
I went to home depot and bought a few pieces of 1/4 inch thick mdf. It was 2ft. by 4ft, I think. Then I went to my friend's house and her husband used his table saw to cut it into 2 inch and 3 inch wide strips (4 ft long) for me.Then I used my new baby:

to cut 12 inches off each 2 inch wide strip, since I wanted a 3ft. strip and a 1 ft. strip. Then I just used liquid nails and stuck everything up where I wanted it. I did add a few nails to hold everything in place really well. I had to make a few cuts to go around the outlet and light switch plate. Oh yeah--before I started glueing and such, I did some measuring to see how far apart to make my vertical boards. I decided about 12 inches apart was ideal. I also just went on top of my baseboard. Easy peasy.

This is the 3 foot layer done:

I added the one foot layer on top of that. Then I painted 3 coats of Behr semi gloss Swiss Coffee and voila!!
Hmmm! Now the door looked really bad, so I painted that, too.

Much better!Next it's going to be the table's turn to get a paint job. I'm thinking black would be the best. I would really love white, but TOTALLY not practical for my family. (as I speak, Dr. D is watercoloring and there are drips of black paint all over the table. Yes, I believe black would be best! LOL)