DIY Wood Accent Wall

As I was contemplating some neat ideas for our baby girl's nursery I decided to check out my home decor boards on Pinterest (you can follow me on Pinterest here). Sometimes I forget what I like and have on my dream boards.  :)

One of the pins that struck me was this pallet wood wall project over here. I thought this would be the perfect addition to the nursery and fit in with the natural, girly bird theme. I, of course, needed to keep this project within a tight budget so at first I thought the best option was to use pallets. I've seen those projects and they turn out great plus people have found pallets for free or cheap and that is right up my alley!

I did some research and came to find out that pallet wood is not recommended in nurseries (or in any interior space) because of the bugs that infest the wood as well as the chemicals used on the wood. So in my search for the next best option I found this project over at Thrifty Decor Chick that turned out really nice!

We actually found the wood planks pictured below at a big box hardware store AND lucky for us there was a special promotion where we received a rebate for 50% of the cost... Music to my ears! We bought the amount we needed for the wall (8' x 10' = 80') plus two extra boxes for mistakes and to cover any pieces that were not straight or may have been broken. We also bought a pint of stain and two pieces of pine quarter round to trim each side. I have the full budget at the end of the post but for now let's check out a few pictures from the project and talk about the process.

My hubby and father-in-law installed the wood in just a couple hours using a nail gun so if you have one then use it and if you've got a father-in-law (or a brother or a cousin or a neighbor.... you get the idea) then rope him/her in to help! Before they started they marked all of the studs along the wall which is where they strategically placed the joints of the wood planks so that when they nailed the end the nails would hit the studs. This ensures the planks are secured firmly to the wall. The guys started from the top, at the ceiling, and worked down to the floor. They staggered the planks too because I liked the way that looked since one plank would not cover the length of the wall. The floor trim was removed so when the last plank was shy of the floor it worked ok because we were planning to replace the trim which would cover the gap.

Once the wood was installed we taped the edges and stained the planks. We used Minwax stain in Java. We applied the stain to 3-4 rows starting at the top and then would wipe the stain off.  This gave it enough time to soak in to the wood a little. We repeated this to the bottom. Stain is pretty messy so even though I taped the edges there was spray from the brush strokes that hit the walls and ceiling which we touched up later. After completing the stain on the planks we stained the quarter round trim pieces and then reinstalled the trim at he floor. Next we installed the quarter round trim and that completed the project! In total I would estimate the project took 2 hours for 2 guys to install the wood, 1 hour for the two of us to stain and about an hour to put the finishing touches on the project and clean up... 4 hours total! I have to say that I think it looks great!

Here's the budget breakdown:
$67 wood planks (originally $134 but we received a rebate for 50%)
$7 stain
$16 pine quarter round (about $1 per linear foot... 2 corners x 8' height)
TOTAL: $100!!!

The supplies I had on hand were the nails, nail gun, tape, we reused the baseboard trim and just touched up the paint. And that's it! Loved the results and it was well worth the $100 and 4 hours.

What do you think? Could you see this on a wall in your home?

<-Kassy->