How to DIY a Vertical Wood Slat Wall
Materials Needed
3
1
2
4
Orbital Sander
Table Saw
– Wood Slats- (4) 4 x 8 sheets of MDF
Miter Saw
Materials Needed
7
5
6
8
Caulk
Tape Measure
Paint
Liquid Nails
Materials Needed
11
9
10
12
Laser Level
Trim Nailer
Wood Filler
Tile Spacers
Plan Out The Design
First, you need to plan out your overall design for where you will place your wood slat wall. It could be in a living room as an accent wall, behind your headboard, in a cozy nook, down your hallway, the options are endless. Make sure you know the full overall design of whichever space you're putting this in before you get started on the slat wall. As you can tell, if you want to avoid a lot of unnecessary work, doing a lot of the design elements you may be incorporating first, before installing the wood slat wall, will help avoid additional work, costs, and mistakes.
Cut Down Strips of Wood
Once you know your design and have gathered your materials, it's time to get to work! Using our table saw, we cut down (4) 4x 8' sheets of MDF, we cut 1/2" strips and placed them 3/4" wide apart on the wall. If you don't have a table saw, you can also buy this pre-cut, but it does cost more. Note: Jamie said if we did this again, he would use real wood. The MDF wood grains are hard to paint, and it absorbs the paint fast, so additional coats of paint were needed. However, it would have cost 4-5x more than the MDF. So we saved a ton by using MDF over real wood.
Paint Strips of Wood/MDF
From those four sheets of 4x8 MDF boards, we got around 250 (ish) slats of wood for our wood slat wall. And then it was painting time! We created a little DIY paint booth in our shop and sprayed three sides of the boards. We didn't do all four sides because Jamie knew he would have to nail the boards up, fill the nail holes, and repaint them, so he avoided an unnecessary step.
Paint Strips of Wood/MDF
We used Tricorn Black by Sherwin Williams for our accent wall in their Emerald Urethane Enamel. We painted all of our doors and trim in this color and finish, so we had leftovers on hand; otherwise, you probably wouldn't necessarily need to invest in the Emerald line of paint. Once painted, we popped them up our ladder to let them dry on. Who would have known this would make such a handy drying rack!
Install Slat Plants
Once all the boards were dry, we got to installing the boards. One by one, Jamie measured the wall, cut down each piece with his miter saw to fit the height of the wall needed, applied liquid nails adhesive, secured to the wall, and nailed it into place with his nail gun.
Install Slat Plants
Install Slat Plants
To ensure each slat plank was the same width as the other, Jamie used 3/4" tile spacers as well as his laser level to ensure each plank was perfectly straight.
Install Slat Plants
Fill Nail Holes
Once all of the slat plank boards are up, it's the fun part...time to fill all of those nail holes! One by one using wood filler, fill every single one. See all of those white spots, that's where Topher has filled in the nail holes.
Sand
Once all of the nail holes are filled with wood filler, it's time to sand the wall down using an orbital sander - sand before you paint. We sanded once before we applied a coat of paint and after one coat of paint. This is because Jamie could tell the walls weren't perfectly soft to touch, and it was bothering him. Sanding after your first coat of paint won't be necessary if you're walls are looking good!
Paint Wall
And then it's time to paint that wood slat wall! As we mentioned, we used Tricorn Black by Sherwin Williams in their Emerald Urethane Enamel. And we rolled and brushed that final fourth side while installed on the wall. You might want a tiny, tiny artist paintbrush as well to get into those tiny grooves in some areas.
Time & Cost
DANCE PARTY!!! YOU DID IT! And that's a wrap. This project took the guys a total of 55 hours. And it cost us a grand total of $612.25, not including the fireplace. The fireplace cost us around $3K. If you were to hire c2s to do the job, well you can do the math, it'd be around $8-10K depending on the fireplace unit. I had to give Jamie a good two weeks before I asked him if he thought it was worth it or not. Those first two weeks were a little rocky as he kept saying, "we're never doing this again..." But now that he can kick back and relax and admire his hard work, he loves the look of how it turned out and is glad we went in this direction. So if you're up for a little challenge and want a unique accent wall, you can do it! The wood slat wall is worth the joy it'll bring to your daily life.