DIY Faux Shiplap

Shiplap...oh shiplap! I have so much love for shiplap! It may not be for everyone, but if you are here at my blog, then more than likely it's a style that you love as well. We've added shiplap to many areas of our home; feature walls, niches, bathrooms, our office and now we are adding it to our entire staircase in the basement. I like to add it to areas I want to brighten and add visual interest to. Areas that usually lack character or seem to fade away in the background are usually the spots I like to add shiplap to. For those of you who are lucky enough to have real shiplap, I'm super jealous! I would love to have an old home where the original character of it shines. In the mean time though, we will just have some fun faking it!

Today I would like to show you guys how we added faux shiplap in our house and in this post I will use the area above our fireplace as the example.

*You can also watch my Instagram video tutorial here on this project.

What you will need:

• 4ft x 8ft sheets of presanded 4mm thick plywood, we get ours at Home Depot and get them to cut it down to 6" strips there.

• Sand Paper

• Brad Nailer Gun, we hook ours up to our air compressor

• Brad Nails 1 1/4"

• Trim and Door paint, I usually go with Para paint in semi gloss

• Paint roller and brush

• Nickles for the spacers

• Paintable Caulk and wood filler

• Stud Finder

Step 1:

Measure your space that you are needing to shiplap. Then decided how many of the 4x8 foot sheets you will need to purchase. We pay on average about $32 per sheet at our local Home Depot. While you are at your Home Depot or hardware store, ask the handy dandy guy working there to rip your pre sanded plywood down for you to your desired width. We like to get ours cut down to 6" strips. Some stores charge for this cutting service now. We have never been charged, but I hear with the popularity of shiplap these days that some stores are needing to charge for this service due to the time it takes, so be sure to ask before hand.

We decided to add a faux shiplap feature area above the fireplace in our basement

Step 2:

Mark your studs on the wall with a pencil. Draw a long line down the wall from top to bottom so that you can clearly see where the stud line is. Decide before you attach your shiplap to the wall if you want your edges to be painted the same colour as your shiplap or not. I know a lot of people like to paint the edges of their plywood and sometimes even the wall its going up and onto before hand in the colour of the shiplap. Now this is a step we did not do. To me it seemed like a lot of work, and honestly I personally liked the look of the dark line in between the boards. I found that by not painting these edges that it enhanced the character of the shiplap and defined the nickle spacing even better.

Step 3:

Now that your studs are all marked you are going to use your Brad nailer to attach your shiplap into the studs. Be sure to use your nickle in between the boards for even spacing.

...and continue to work your way down

If you are working along a longer wall you will need to decide on a pattern that you will like. We went with a simple pattern for our living room wall so that the shiplap board ends didn't line up next to each other, much like subway tile if this makes sense??

You can see we started to form a pattern along this long wall due to the length of it

Step 4:

I always like to fill my nail holes with a bit of wood filler and caulk along the edge of the wall to fill in any gaps. After I sand everything down its now time to pint. All my shiplap is painted out in Benjamin Moore Simply White. I usually get Para paint from Lowes and get it tinted in Simply White. I like to try to buy my paint when its buy one get one free!

Try to role your paint horizontally so that its going along with the grain of the wood.

Looking good!

And now for my favorite part, time to decorate!

Shiplap is so easy to do guys, don't at all be intimidated by this project. In fact it's so easy you will get hooked on it and want to add it everywhere...much like us! I hope this easy shiplap tutorial helped you guys feel confident enough to try this do-it-yourself project on your own.

Please don't hesitate to ask me any questions about this tutorial. Simply leave a comment below:)

Love,

Dale xo