How to install tongue and groove shiplap on a wall.Â
Add character to your walls with this beautiful DIY vertical tongue and groove detail!
As much as we've loved the darker, cozy feel of our bedroom, the colors I used when I first decorated it years ago have really restricted the accents I could use:Â
For the past year or so it has really bugged me — I learned a while ago that
not a lot of colors complement a dark gray.Â
I like to add seasonal touches like warmer, richer colors for fall. Or pops of red for the holidays. But nothing ever meshed well with the dark gray tones.Â
I LOVE this dark Westchester Gray in our moody basement, but it was feeling heavy in our bedroom.Â
So. I had a plan for a little DIY makeover, and I finally got to work on it last week. It involved vertical tongue and groove molding that I could incorporate into the existing chair rail that I installed years ago.Â
Because I was adding new trim to the walls that was going from the floor up to the chair rail, I needed to remove the baseboards all around the room:
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I shared my method for removing baseboards without damaging the wall years ago and it's still my go-to.Â
It's not always necessary to remove the baseboards when adding trim work to walls, but I highly recommend it in this instance.Â
You'll see why this particular trim accent looks better with thicker baseboards in a bit!
Tongue and groove is the technical term for shiplap or planked walls. I've done a lot of projects with this look over the years and the shiplap method I've used in the past is cheaper than the one I chose this time.Â
This time I decided to use actual tongue and groove planks from Lowe's. I thought it was going to be way more expensive than it was — but because this was only going to go up about a third of the wall, Â it wasn't too bad.Â