Raise your hand if you’ve become a victim of falling in love with Shiplap. Friend, my hand is raised too! And I knew during the most recent Reno in The Morganston House I just had to have shiplap somewhere. I don’t know about you, but until oh a week ago – I had no idea how expensive the real shiplap is! I had no clue! Don’t get me wrong, its amazing quality pieces, but for what I wanted to Shiplap, I knew I didn’t want to really spend that much. So, with a little researching and a little elbow grease & hard work, we were able to add some Shiplap love to our most recent renovation, our Laundry/Mud Room! A sneak peek at the ‘almost’ finished product!

Not to bore you with all the details, but one of the biggest projects we had to tackle right away within The Morganston House was adding Laundry and a second bathroom. I knew right from the beginning I wanted the Laundry/Mudroom combo to come off the front entrance of the house for maximum use and efficiency. It was the perfect space to also add on a small 1pc bathroom right behind it (behind the wall that we shiplaped, that you enter from the Dining Room…ill add more on that Bathroom reno soon!) so we were really killing two birds with one stone. So underway we went framing the walls and getting the drywall up. It was fun to piece together the layout of the room – I love to use Painters Tape when doing projects like this on the floor, so you can really get a feel for the layout in real time. Check out the blank space I had to work with!

After painting our walls Florito by Home Hardware Beauti Tone it was time to lay everything out. I wanted to maximize storage space all while maximizing the space of the room! I knew I wanted a sink to wash brushes etc and not be afraid to get a little dirty now and then, as well as a large counter for work space. So this was the plan I came up with, and now that everything is in working order, im so pleased with the design layout! We made our counters out of Pine and the cabinets out of white MDF all from Home Depot.

Okay now fast forward to the fun stuff! All the appliances and accessories! My white farmhouse sink I ordered off of Wayfair.ca, my black faucet is from IKEA Canada and our favourite appliances right now are Samsungs.

Alright who is ready to learn how to create a Faux Shiplap wall that only requires one trip to Home Depot and an afternoon of gluing & nail gunning!?! I really can’t get over how accessible, easy and affordable this project was! If you have a space in your home that is in need of a little wall love, this just might be your next weekend project! I am going to take you through a step by step journey on our materials used and process to create this look in our home.

Materials

  • Aspen (Poplar) Smooth Plywood 4’x8’x1/4″. For the size of our space we required to purchase 2 sheets to fill the space. Also, if you can believe it our walls and ceilings are no where even (thank you Century Farmhouse..) so we wanted to have extra just incase we did make some miss-cuts along the way! Roughly $30/sheet.
    • If you are purchasing your wood from Home Depot, they can cut it for you right then and there! We chose to do our Shiplap in 8″ boards. Therefore, rip your plywood sheets into 8″x8′ boards.
  • PL Construction Grade
  • Nail Gun & 1″ Nails
  • Level
  • Tape Measure
  • Nickels (ill explain later!)
  • Compound Milter Saw
  • Jig Saw (for outlets if need be)
  • Favourite shade of White (Mine is Alabaster by Sherwin Williams) & paint roller & tray
    • Just a quick tip: If you are new to painting interiors you can take any code from any Paint company, and Home Hardware will match it in their Beauti Tone Bases. Beauti Tone is by far my favourite paint I’ve used so far, and I have painted a lot my friend! Trust me! For example: Alabaster is code SW 7008.
  • A second pair of hands will help in this process!

Process

  • Once you have your sheets ripped into 8″ boards, you can start painting! I strongly suggest you paint before you install, therefore you won’t paint over any of your seams which create that shiplap look. Let paint dry for 2 or so hours or overnight if you wish. I did 2 coats!
  • Now you can start mapping out the look of your Shiplap wall. To make things easy for us and to ensure we would waste minimal amount of wood, we decided to do our wall in 2′ and 6′ boards, alternating each as we travel up the wall instead of doing full 8′ pieces. You can really do whatever you please here, or you can just mismatch each level! Have fun with it!
  • Measure twice and cut all boards to your desired lengths as mapped out from above.
  • Level off your first board that either touches the ground, trim or counter like here. Ensure its next to perfect as this is the piece your whole wall will be based off of! Use your glue or nails or a combo of both to install.*
    • *We decided to use Glue as well as nails as we have quite a bit of plumbing in that wall, so we wanted to use the least amount of nails possible until we reach towards the top. If you have no plumbing to worry about, nails from your nail gun are the easiest way to go!
  • Install your second piece next to that piece, level off and install.
  • Now the funny part. To get the perfect ‘seam’ each time to give the shadow of the Shiplap look, I decided to use Nickels. Yes Nickels if you can believe it. This is where that second pair of hands come in handy! I couldn’t believe how perfect this easy trick made each row. Everything looked professionally done, and from afar, you would think its the real shiplap, right!!?
  • Travel all the way till the ceiling installing your boards.
  • To finish off the wall, the next steps are up to you. I decided to forgo them and just touched up any bumps or scratches with paint. You can also:
    • Use white wood filler to fill any nail holes and then repaint.
    • Give a second or third coat to the wall *be careful of painting those seams though! You don’t want to hide the Shiplap look with paint!
    • Use a quarter round to finish off the outer perimeter of the wall to five it that ‘framed’ look. I still might do this part to finish it off!

Wall Accessories

I knew once the Shiplap was up this wall needed some eye candy. I didnt to go crazy and cover up the wall with shelves and pictures etc because I wanted to enjoy that Shiplap. So I decided with one 5′ shelf with black industrial brackets from Home Depot. They come in different colours too! But I wanted to tie in the black faucet, the schoolhouse lights fixture and the drying rack. I styled the shelves with a Wood Sign that I created through my business Krieger Customs and some fun antique finds that I just picked from my favourite stores.

Other accessories such as my storage baskets to the left of the sink are from Canadian Tire – I can’t wait to letter the Chalkboard space once I fill them up with goodies! My fabric for my Sink skirt is a random find from Fabricland Canada and my Laundry baskets were a great find from Walmart.ca! And with all the light coming in the room, of course I had to add a house plant! Vines are my favourite plant to decorate with inside.

Bring on the Shiplap!

I had so much fun bringing you on this DIY journey today! This Faux Shiplap DIY is going down as one of my favourites so far because the transformation is crazy! (So where else can I add it now right???) It brought the focal point of the room back on the height of the gorgeous ceilings and now reflects all the natural light back into the space. Im so glad we ventured down this DIY path! We still have a long way to go to finish off this room – I am still mapping out a closet system in the opposite corner pictured below, new curtains and installing this gorgeous farmhouse door I found to the entrance of the Mudroom (sneak peeks soon!). You are going to have to wait for that reveal, but I hope it will be soon! Don’t forget to pop on over to Instagram to say hello and follow the journey even more. Until the next DIY my friend! Thanks for stopping by!

Talk soon, Sam xx