Board and Batten treatment

I've known for months now that I ultimately wanted a board and batten look in our front room. 

However, I mentioned it to my husband those many months ago and he was really less than enthusiastic about it.  So, the compromising lady that I am, decided that I could make do without the lovely architectural addition and just get away with painting one wall blue.   The husband was on board with that idea, so I ran with it, and you can read about the results of that in THIS POST

And here is a little photo of how that turned out... 

Well.  I liked the results, I really did, but something was bothering me about it.  I guess since one blue wall wasn't really my initial vision, I was having a hard time with it flowing with the rest of my plans.  Our neutral walls were now looking really yellow and it was beginning to look very kindergarten classroom-ish, with our one blue wall, yellow-y looking other walls, and our bright red filing console on the other end of the room. 

So, I pulled up some images of board and batten, done well, on Decorpad.com and showed them to Brandon.   He was totally on board this time; I'm guessing the room was looking just as odd to him as it was to me.

We measured out the room and determined that we would need 20 ten foot boards to do the whole room minus the one blue wall.  I still wanted it left the same.

So, off to Home Depot we went.  Our ten foot boards were about $5 and some change each, so we loaded them up, and also put in our cart a gallon of white paint.  Cheapo that I am was a little disappointed that our total was going to be around $150 for this wall treatment.   $100 + for lumber, almost $30 for paint, and a few paint brushes thrown in there added to the total.  I was also I little bummed because the wood that existed in my mind, didn't seem to exist in real life.  Ultra thin (to not stick out over the baseboards), and ultra cheap.   Oh well.  I really wanted it done.   So, we were standing in line at the contractor checkout, since our local Home Depot has EVERY other register as self-check out now.  Ugh.. how annoying is that?  I like self checkout stations, but I like at least one other normal register open.. especially for lumber and whatnot.

Anyhoo, we were standing there with our cart full of lumber and I notice this display of bender board, 3 3/4 inch wide, 1/4 inch thick, by 96 inch long strips of MDF, used by concrete contractors to shape curvy sidewalks or driveways. 

In hindsight, had we not been in the contractor line, I'd have never seen these strips!  I thought to myself that these would be perfect... and wandered over to the display to see how much they were.   $1.60 something each.  Say what!  Needless to say, we put all of our other lumber back and loaded up on 30 strips of the MDF.  We ended up picking up more since the lengths were shorter and we didn't want any weird seams.  Actually we over estimated and we have about 10 strips leftover! ha!  I have another project in mind for them though, so I'm happy we over bought.  Anyway, at this point our $150 project was now around $80.  How great is that??  I have no idea if others have done the board and batten look with these bender boards, but I highly recommend it.  Cheap, thin, PERFECT!  You definitely need to prime first, since the MDF is absorbent, but if you're planning on doing that anyway, then it is really no big deal.

So, after all that jibber jabber, time for more photos!

We are no where near being finished with this space, but we've seen quite the progress so far!

Here is a reminder before (actually more like a during):

And a few during the wall treatment addition:

Ahhh.  This room is finally starting to feel like it is a part of our home.  Love it.

Thanks for reading!

Linking to :  Between Naps on the Porch

:)  Courtney