.Week two of the One Room Challenge, and we’ve been focusing on shiplap! First and foremost, I should clarify that by “stacked” shiplap, I simply mean symmetrical vs staggered. I didn’t realize I had made that phrase up until I tried making a hashtag with it on Instagram, and there were zero other tags to it. I started getting questions from people asking me to clarify, and that further solidified my suspicions. If anyone else knows what to call it when it’s not staggered, I’m all ears!
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Regardless of what it’s called, we’re huge fans of it! This is the third room we’ve added it to now and can’t seem to get enough. In our bedroom design, our goal is to make the cane headboard the focal point, but the shiplap will be a close second. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m really not a huge fan of the vaulted ceilings in our room…. yet. All they’ve done is leave us with big empty walls and emphasize our small closet and bathroom doors. By adding shiplap, I’m now starting to like them! In addition to liking our bedroom walls, here are three other reasons we continue to choose stacked shiplap around our home…
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1. It Achieves the Modern Farmhouse Aesthetic
We have a variety of styles that we love and use around our home. I would say that Modern Farmhouse is the dominating one. Shiplap is traditionally a very farmhouse element, but when it’s stacked and painted, it has a much more modern appearance. One example of this is when we used stacked shiplap in our master bathroom to spice up the vaulted ceiling wall and play off the matte black fixtures.
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2. It Makes a Big Impact
I’m very minimalistic, in general, so I’m always a huge fan of things that make an impact without adding a lot of “stuff”. Shiplap makes a space feel more complete and finished, without any of the clutter. A few months ago, we added it to the blank walls on either side of the fireplace, and it made a drastic change to the space. Built-ins would’ve been the obvious choice when flanking the fireplace, but it felt too dominating in such a small space. The shiplap is the perfect accent that eliminates the need to add a ton of decor to these walls.
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3. It’s Decently Easy
The shiplap walls beside our fireplace were one of the first DIY projects we tackled. We put it off for a VERY long time because I though it was going to be a nightmare. I stressed about it a lot leading up to it… Imagine my surprise when Joe knocked out one of the sides in a day. And not even a whole day. With little kids, it’s usually naptime and bedtime hours and whatever other time we can dig up.
This is everything required to do a shiplap wall, and the table saw wasn’t even needed for the fireplace walls because the boards fit so well and didn’t need to be cut lengthwise. I linked the tools that we have as beginners!
Once the studs are marked on the wall for nails, base trim is removed, and the first board is leveled to make up for any uneven floors, the rest of the boards go up quickly. The boards we used are even self-spacing, so it eliminates the need to add spacers and takes out some of the room for error. Once the boars are up, all that’s left is trim, filling in nail holes, caulk, and paint!
This shiplap in our bedroom ended up being slightly more complicated working around doors and corners, so the only other tool we had to purchase was a 360 leveling layer. This takes the guesswork out of lining up the boards across those areas. We’re so excited to finally add some character to these walls and finish up the “bookends” to our design!
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