Help w/ Wooden Wall Finish
One wall in my apartment will have a lot of holes in the drywall once the built-in shelves are removed. I want to cover the wall with treated wooden planks to look like the picture above. How would I go about doing this? Should I use wide flooring planks or will any ole planks from…
One wall in my apartment will have a lot of holes in the drywall once the built-in shelves are removed. I want to cover the wall with treated wooden planks to look like the picture above. How would I go about doing this? Should I use wide flooring planks or will any ole planks from Lowes (stained & treated) work? Should I rent a nail gun and just nail them to the wall? Am I crazy to attempt this DYI? Any suggestions or hints welcome. Thanks!
Unless you want the finished product to look really cheap, avoid prefinished and narrow width boards or those with a V-groove. It will look like a bad seafood restaurant interior. It’s a small area you are doing, so why not splurge on something fine? Get the wood you want and oil it rather than urethane.
Here’s an install option to consider:
Armstrong makes a system (still, I think) for installing ceiling panels that you could possibly use to install the boards on the wall. The system is metal supports or tracks that are screwed into the ceiling (or wall in this case) and uses small clips to hold the panels in place. You can easily level (or make sure everything is in one plane in your case) by using shims when you secure the metal tracks.
You might be lucky enough that the clips would fit on the grove of the tongue and groove of the wood and hold the wood in place. When I used it I remember the clips being about that size. Advantage of this system is you can take it with you when you leave. Simply pop it down and fill the holes with spackling compound. Hence the suggestion of getting the nicest wood you can get. I bought this system years ago at Lowe’s to install a drop ceiling for someone.
Now the potential disadvantage of this approach, should you do this as a backdrop for your headboard, is that it has the potential to become a sounding board of sorts (depending on what wood you use) and then could transmit any cries of passion should there be any. You might want to stuff some insulation, foam or other material behind the wood to prevent this from occurring.
Good luck!
There’s nothing that says it has to be attached directly to the sheetrock. You could level it out with studs on the flat or nailing strips too..
Very doable. You will need a miter saw, compressor and brad nail gun, construction panel adhesive, tape measure, chalk line, level. Should be able to rent all these tools locally.
Don’t count on that rectangle wall to have true square corners. I would measure ceiling height at both corners to check for difference and start at the top and work down to conceal at bottom floor level.
glue directly to sheetrock or frame out with firing strips. Although using nailer boards will require additional work making sure the board’s butt ends meet up properly
I would think one would proceed as if doing a floor, removing warped boards, uneven colored ones, cracked ones, and then varying the joints over the entire face.
I would think unfinished wood would be your first choice…
Very doable. You will need a miter saw, compressor and brad nail gun, construction panel adhesive, tape measure, chalk line, level. Should be able to rent all these tools locally.
Don’t count on that rectangle wall to have true square corners. I would measure ceiling height at both corners to check for difference and start at the top and work down to conceal at bottom floor level.
glue directly to sheetrock or frame out with firing strips. Although using nailer boards will require additional work making sure the board’s butt ends meet up properly
I would think one would proceed as if doing a floor, removing warped boards, uneven colored ones, cracked ones, and then varying the joints over the entire face.
I would think unfinished wood would be your first choice…
Thank you everyone for your helpful comments. I will be dropping by Lumber Liquidators to check out what they have on sale. I found a color match on their website for a peel and stick floor, so maybe this will be easier to work with than hardwood.
The glue will work, but I would go a different route from the glue. Maybe I am biased since I have too many times faced removing something someone else glued to drywall that usually takes the drywall with it. I would find the studs, attach 1×3 vertical strips outside the drywall, and attach the planks to the nailing strips. (If you have wooden rather than steel studs, no need for nailing strips just draw a chalk line marking each stud). I also think fasteners are like jewelry (even though I don’t wear jewelry) — they should be an interesting design, and worn on the outside, not hidden. I think this would look good with, for example, some square drive stainless steel button head bolts lined up in a symmetric vertical pattern. Otherwise, you should blind nail in the groove of t&g boards.
I think you are going to find this simpler and neater with flooring, unless you are going to get someone to mill these pieces for you. That wall looks like 7″ boards — it will be cheaper and easier to get something a little narrower. A quick look at Lumber Liquidators for example shows a 6″ white oak for $3.79 sq ft. As suggested above, do not get pre-finished flooring and use oil rather than poly.
not going to be easy. I doubt anyone’s walls and ceiling are so perfect that you won’t need some moulding where planks meet walls/ceiling.
Southslope hit the nail on the head… literally. Adhesive with a small gauge brad into the tongue.
First determine the type of wood you would like to use (wall looks like it could be Ash or Chestnut?). Then the finish (i like oil and wax). Most T & G from Lowes or HD will have a “bead” or “V” notch between each board (unless it is flooring) that will not give you the clean look as in your photo. You can save money by using thinner stock that typical flooring. You should check those discount flooring places and see what they have on sale. Be prepared and know how many square feet you need. You can apply with just liquid nails or some other adhesive appropriate for wood and sheetrock applications. Use a notched trowel as if you were laying tile. Once applied, allow the adhesive to “set up” before you apply the wood. Start at the bottom with a level line. Do not trust that your floor is level.