DIY Shiplap

15 Materials
$100
4 Hours
Easy

Are you a fan of Fixer Upper? Are all of your decorations or DIY projects "All because of Chip and Jo"?


I can answer yes to both of those questions! After painting our fireplace white I knew I had to have shiplap. Here's how we did it, and it was pretty cheap! (Partially because we had a lot of the items on hand)


This is what the walls next to the fireplace looked like before...

Hereā€™s a list of what you will need:


  • 4ā€³ Paint roller
  • 2ā€³ Angled brush (I just used whatever paint brush I had)
  • Sand paper
  • 1 1/4ā€³ Nail gun nails ā€“ make sure they are the correct gaugeā€¦.I made this mistake
  • 6 inch plywood planks
  • Circular saw ā€“ you can rent one or Amazon has one for $40 . You can get one 4Ɨ8 sheet of plywood for $13.98.


    Step 2: Have Loweā€™s or Home Depot cut the 4Ɨ8 sheets of plywood into 6ā€³ planks.

    The way they cut the board depends on how you want your shiplap to be. Since our walls were small we decided to just have one board cover the whole wall instead of having smaller and bigger planks pieced together. If your wall is bigger you will have to piece them together and stagger the pieces.

Step 3: Sand the edges of the plywood until smooth.


Step 4: Mark your studs in the wall


Step 5: Measure your walls and cut the planks to fit the wall. Sand edges until smooth.


Step 6: Line up the first piece to the top of the wall and nail it into the studs.


Step 7: Use the nickels to separate the planks for even spacing.


Step 8: Fill nail holes & let dry (I skipped this step because our caulk wasnā€™t working and I was impatient. But you really canā€™t tell unless you get super close!)


Step 9: PAINT!!!!

I first did a coat of icon  in white because I had that left over from the fireplace.

Ideally you wouldn't use the brick paint on wood but I was trying to keep the cost down and it worked just fine!


I ended up using one coat of the stain blocker and two coats of the white brick paint. Make sure you get in the cracks or as youā€™re putting up the shiplap you could paint the wall between each plank before adding the next plank. But painting the cracks worked out fine for me!


Step 10: This is optional and we didnā€™t need it because we already had trim pieces lining the fireplace but you can add trim pieces depending on how youā€™re wanting it to look.


I recruited my husband to help with the cutting and nailing portion:

Here it is when one side was one before painting!

And here is the finished product!!


In all of her white, bright, shiplap glory!!!

Here she is all dressed up! I added two floating shelves to the right, which I will post a tutorial on how to make later icon

It looks so much better than before! I love how the shiplap makes the room brighter and makes my dƩcor pop!

I LOVED how it looked with my Christmas decorations!

We had a decent amount of wood planks left so when we repainted our kitchen we put shiplap on the sides of the cabinets and island and I love how it ties it all in!


It's a pretty cheap and easy project to spruce up a room or wall. It made me want to add shiplap everywhere, but I refrained from doing so! icon

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3 of 4 questions
  • Jacx Jacx on Jun 13, 2019

    We are moving so at night I'm really tired! I say this due to the fact i completely overlooked your clever use of that vintage box for your Christmas balls! Very charming indeed. What kind of storage was it originally?

    Seriously, I could move into your style and be content. Sophisticated Country!

  • Janine Janine on Jun 20, 2019

    What thickness is the plywood?

  • Lisa Fauerbach Lisa Fauerbach on Jun 13, 2020

    Beautiful job!! I love it!

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