Board and Batten Wainscoting DIY

I'm a huge, huge fan of wainscoting, guys. I can't help it, moulding on walls or ceilings just speaks to me. ;)

Our house already had a lot of beautiful wainscoting and crown moulding when we moved in. But the bedrooms were pretty boring. So, I'm slowly moving through each room, amping up the character.

I've just added chunky crown and floor to ceiling board and batten in my kid's room. Here's the simple DIY for that Lattice Board and Batten.

You might also like the Tray Ceiling Paneling and Wainscoting update in our Master Bedroom.

Yawn. This room needed some fun, some color, and some character. My littlest guy moving out of his crib was the perfect motivation to finally do this kid's room makeover. You can see the full bedroom reveal here, plus details on my DIY Twin Upholstered Headboards, PVC Pipe Play Tent, and the Farmhouse Activity Wall with the Lego boards my kid's love.

Before doing anything, I marked the very center of the wall with pencil.

Then, I laid out all of my boards on the floor to design the best layout. I wanted the boards to be centered on the wall. So, that could mean 1 board was the center OR the middle of the space between 2 boards was the center.

Laying everything out helped me see where each board would hit each door frame, outlet, and light switch on the wall. In a perfect world, I wouldn't hit any of those....But DIY never happens in a perfect world, right? ;)

It was pretty close though. My boards only hit one outlet. And that outlet would be behind a bed anyway. Win!

Design Note: I used a 5 1/4" wide baseboard as the spacer between my lattice boards. You can go for wider or closer spacing to suit your room and style!

I used primed, wood lattice boards for this project. Before attaching the boards, I sanded each board with my ryobi finishing sander and cut them to size with my Miter Saw.

I went with Paneling Adhesive and my brad nailer for this job. Some people just use a brad nailer and rely on their caulk to hold moulding to their walls. Sometimes, I go that route. But for this job, I went for adhesive too.

I wanted to make sure that the thinner Lattice boards would remain consistently tight across the length of the boards without the chance for shifting after years of wear and tear from my boys. :)

Use a long spirit level to make sure that first board is perfectly straight. Once you have that board straight. A long spacer, like the baseboard I used, will keep the rest of the boards straight. That spacer will make the job go so much quicker too, no need to use that level anymore.

I ran a bead of adhesive along the back of each board and nailed it in place about every 18 inches. Nail at an angle to get a nice, tight grab on that drywall while the adhesive dries.

You can see the spacer between 2 of my Lattice Battens here. The battens are so tight against the spacer that they hold it in place on the wall.

You'll need to cut around any doors, outlets, switches, etc as you go. I used my Miter Saw, but a simple Miter Box would work easily on Lattice Boards.

You can get the full details and see more of this DIY on my tutorial. Including info about how I caulked the boards and filled the nail holes.

Have fun and let me know if you have questions!