What we’ve been up to the last couple months and our recent DIY white washed shiplap inspired wall

Hey friends! I have so missed being here with you all and am so excited to be able to just connect with you again! I have been away but have used my Instagram as a way to still be connected. Just in case you were wondering where the heck this girl has been, long story short, we decided to pull our kids out of their school which is literally a block over, to homeschool them this year (and threw a sweet puppy in the mix while we were at it but more on him later). This has definitely been quite an adjustment for us; just learning how it all works, what learning and teaching style fits our kids, balancing our time and things like this. I did realize in the process that though life has been busy, it will always be busy and I just need to learn to work with the time I do have and be balanced. I am currently trying to figure out a regular schedule that works for everyone where I can also have time to connect with you here, be creative and share projects, designs and life! And I know this might sound dumb.. But I had an epiphany last week when my sister said “why does blogging have to be so complicated, just share what you’re up to”.. And seriously guys, this was like a “duh” moment for me. I tend to over think things and over complicate things when it really is that simple. So, today I am choosing to just share what is going on in real life and the projects/ decor ideas/ whatever else with the goal that it would inspire you to stay creative, love designing, embrace your craft and just enjoy making your house a home!

Ok, on to the good stuff.. What I really wanted to share with you today was our recent DIY white washed shiplap inspired wall using reclaimed wood. Honestly guys, we didn’t even look anything up on how to do this, but we did it based on what I just had in mind and what was a simple and easy way to get er done! Yes, we are crazy, I know! But we do love the results. Oh and because we started a little later in the day, you will see when we completely lost the sun.. Fun stuff!

So how we came to even make this wall was really on a whim. If you wanna see more before pics of the dining space, check it out here. I had extra reclaimed wood from another project, that I will share with you soon, and my hubby just remembered that I asked to make one a while back and of course over time I just tend to get over things and move on. But, when he mentioned that we should finally do that wall I was asking for, of course I had a big smile on my face. 1, because he remembered when it really was the last thing on my mind. And 2, who doesn’t get excited for some shiplap??

So how easy was it to put together? Honestly it was very simple and can be done in a day but would be better if you started earlier in the morning and not later in the day like we did. Especially if you plan on documenting it. Sorry for that. Anyway, because my wall was made to look imperfect and a little rustic, it really helped make it that much easier and faster.

To accomplish this wall, we first sanded down the wood, just to freshen it up a little but not too much as to lose any character from the wood and dusted all the saw dust off. The wood I used were about 6 inches wide by 5 feet long. They were all reclaimed wood and we did cut off the edges of each end of each piece so they ended up losing some length. I wanted to have a wall that looked worn but not super aged, if that makes sense. Then I decided on how I wanted the wood to be laid out and we started by putting the full pieces on first, directly nailing them to the beams on the wall. Then went on to finish the rest of the wall with wood we had to cut to size.


For reference, this wall is 7 feet wide by 8 feet tall and we used 20 pieces of wood all together. Finally, we taped the outer edges of the wall and did a white washed style of painting onto the wood with about 3 parts paint to 1 part water with a regular paint brush. I made sure to paint in the direction of the wood grain. I gave the wall 3 coats all together with drying time in-between. I could have stopped at 1 coat, but I wanted the wall to be brighter. We used a white semi gloss paint just sitting around on hand that we used to paint our baseboards. I didn’t wipe in between unless I saw that the paint had a drip mark on the edges. Lastly, we put the baseboards back on, caulked and voila: shiplap walls the easy and budget friendly way 😉


So, what do you think of our new wall? I haven’t really styled much in here since the change other than the fact that there are still bats and spider webs up from Halloween that I will be taking down soon! It really was fun working with my hubby on this and it really has added some character to the space. This wall will also always remind me of this: see!! husbands do listen when we talk about our list of things we wanna do on our project list.. LOL! We all have this list right?! Maybe not, but have a great week either way 😉 and to all the mothers, may we all be courageous this week when we have to get between our kids and their Halloween candy =P


Oh and btw, stay tuned for our DIY, budget friendly farmhouse style dining table!