Moody, but Welcoming {Guest Room Feature Wall}

I did it again. I jumped on the feature wall train in yet another room of our house. I just couldn't hep it. I love them so much. You may remember the dark and moody feature wall that I did in our son's room a while back. Well, I added something similar to our guest room, and the project was just as spur of the moment as it was the first time. I think I work best when there is no planning involved whatsoever. I'll just keep telling myself that.

So here's what happened (why do I feel like I am a teenager explaining myself to my parents?): I have been wanting to do something with our guest room for a long time. Truth be told, I've never really done anything to our guest room. It's always been the room that was put on the back burner, and I'm not really sure why. Well, last week, I decided to change that!

To set the scene, I had approximately 2 hours before I had to be ready for a date night with my husband when I got the idea. Let me start with the facts. FACT: We have TON of scrap wood in our garage from previous projects. FACT #2: We also had a sufficient amount of leftover black paint from the wall in our son's room. FACT #3: Both of the previous facts indicated that this project could be done for exactly ZERO DOLLARS. Obviously, a no brainer. So I quickly rushed to the garage and corralled all the pieces that I thought might work for the wall. I found enough to lay out a pattern, with a few groups of differently sized boards. Like a puzzle, I placed them all on the floor and just played around with them. I tried different patterns and different combinations until I found something that I liked.

And when I decided I liked it, I started nailing {I should note that my husband had no notification of this project until he heard the nail gun. Have I mentioned that he's an angel?}. An hour and fifteen minutes left until date night.

In this particular case, I started with the section of the wall that I thought would be close to the middle, and found a wall stud to nail into. Armed with my level to ensure that the wood pieces were plum, I started shooting those nails in without even giving myself enough time to regret it. Spoiler alert: I don't regret it. Once the first section was up, I kind of just went from there, and eyeballed where I would want the following sections to be. Trying to hit as many studs as possible is ideal, but with a pattern of this sort, nailing into the drywall will be just fine in the cases where a stud isn't available. If you do find yourself in that situation, you may want to try to angle your nail gun a bit so that the nail is a little more secure.

Once all the pieces were nailed up, I ran down to get some wood filler with 35 minutes to go before I had to be ready. I was able to fill all the holes and still had 20 minutes to pull myself together. Everything was coming up aces.

I made it to date night, and after a lovely meal and a delicious beer, we came back, put the kids to bed, and I was able to sand down the wood filler before I called it a night as well. So far, total project time was approximately two and a half hours.

I was up and at 'em the next morning, and as soon as I got my son off to school, my daughter and I were able to get the first coat of paint on. Now, I should note: In almost every case, CAULKING IS NECESSARY. I do NOT advise that you attempt a DIY batten wall or feature wall without caulking between the wood pieces and the wall. However, there are exceptions to every rule, and since I was painting the wall black, I was able to skip the caulk. In these types of projects, the caulk will ensure that there is a seamless transition from the wood to the wall and that there is no shadow to be seen. In this particular case, it would be virtually impossible to see a shadow on a black wall anyways. So I cut a corner. That being said, do as I say, not as I do.

First coat was on before 10 o'clock and I was able to apply the second coat later that afternoon. Less than 24 hours for a feature wall and a guest room that seems a bit more complete? Not too shabby.