How to Install a Board and Batten Wall
Make a Plan
First, make sure you have all the right tools and materials handy. We also followed this build from BYOT, which we found extremely helpful.
- Step 1: Design your wall on paper using 45 and 90-degree angles so it will be easier to transfer to the wall. Using 1 inch as 1 foot will make it easier to transfer your design to the wall. I’d been up in the middle of the night with our toddler the night before, but here’s a photo of the design I somehow managed to sketch while half asleep on my living room couch (ha!):
However, it may be even easier if you lay down the outer edge with trim and then just start marking 45-degree angles and create it from there directly on the wall with a pencil. You then get to skip the “design” stage.
- Step 3: Buy the paint you like and any materials and tools you may need.
- Step 4: Mark your studs in the wall (near the top, middle, and bottom of the wall). This will really help speed things up when you’re hanging the MDF.
- Step 5: Measure, cut, and attach MDF to the OUTER outline of the wall you are featuring.
- Step 6: Grab your speed square and straight edge and start drawing a design on the wall.
- Step 7: Hold your piece of MDF trim to the first line you’d like to cut and mark the angle directly onto the MDF board itself. Then, go to your miter saw and cut the angle.
Attach the MDF Board
- Step 8: Bring the piece back to your wall, holding it up to make sure you’ve given yourself a good angle to connect the angled MDF to the outer edge MDF. Once you’ve ensured it will work, grab your staple gun, hold the board up to where it goes, and staple at every stud point.
- Step 9: After you have all of your pieces attached, go around and fill in every gap between the MDF boards with a generous amount of DAP Patch & Paint with your putty knife.
- Step 10: Apply a very light bead of caulk with your caulk gun between your MDF boards and the wall to create a finished look. You will be surprised at how tiny your caulk line needs to be to fill in this gap – the less caulk, the better. We learned the hard (and messy) way.
- Step 11: Grab your orbital sander and 180 grit sandpaper, and sand down the DAP Patch & Paint between the MDF boards to give your boards seamless transitions. I consider this the “secret ingredient” step. This will completely elevate your look.
Paint The Wall
- Step 12: Wipe down the whole area with a damp washcloth to clear the dust and debris before painting.
- Step 13: Apply painter’s tape and painter’s plastic VERY generously around the edge and trim of your design (wherever you don’t want paint). There may be quite a bit of overspray from the paint gun, so be sure to secure your painter’s plastic on top of or around everything you don’t want painted. We didn’t put enough down and got some overspray on our adjacent wall, ceiling, and door. Not fun to clean up.
- Step 14: Follow your paint gun (and paint mixing) directions and paint your walls using the spray gun. TEST your spray gun outside on a scrap piece of MDF first if possible. And always err on the side of applying less paint than you need. It’s easy to add more later but it’s much harder to fix putting too much paint on the wall.
- Tip: You will very likely need to thin out your paint before putting it in the paint gun. Most paint guns will have instructions on how to do this. And your paint manufacturer will help you figure out how much water to add as well. This is important because you don’t want to clog up and ruin your paint gun or get thick, gloppy paint on your wall.
- Step 15: Let your paint dry and apply a light second coat to cover up any light areas or to just even it out.
- Step 16: Remove your tape and plastic while the paint is a little bit wet. This will help to avoid pulling up paint with your tape.
Marvel at your beautiful design and new board and batten accent wall!
Please DO NOT touch the paint until it’s completely dry! It can take up to a week for the paint to fully settle. I’d wait at least that long before hanging anything up or leaning anything against it.
If the paint gets drippy or messed up somewhere, you can sand that area down after it’s dry and lightly respray it or use a paintbrush to go over it. But again, you will more easily avoid this by using a very light amount of paint with each layer.