Who doesn’t love some shiplap! Talk about a super fun and trendy way to update you home. Not only is it fun and trendy, but also can be fairly reasonable priced and easy to install. With the weather changing, it seems like a good time to change up your home, décor, painting, home organizing, etc. Why not start with some shiplap?
Shiplap is a textured wood that is installed on the wall and can come in many colors, textures, sizes, etc. The boards fit together. Some people make patterns as they install the boards. It is a great way to set-off a wall in your house or to create a strong focal point or just to spruce up a small wall space.
My house has a lot of white walls. I needed a wall that was textured and I didn’t want to apply a paint color (yet), so I decided to use shiplap to add some form of texture and interest in our foyer. The wall was small, contained (it had a good start and stop point) and is a focal point for our living room/entry way.
Here are few pointers if you are thinking of shiplapping any wall in your home:
Plan it out: make sure that you shiplap a wall that you really want to commit too and that you can really get your bang for your buck. You might get some rough wood and lean it against the wall or hang a few pieces to make sure you want to commit to it.
How much to shiplap? Well that depends on your room and wall space. We used shiplap on one wall while you can shiplap a whole room. You might start with the one wall, make sure you like it, that it fits the space and then work your way around the room.
Look up ideas: you can look up on Pinterest about a million ideas for shiplap. This is a great way to find ideas, inspiration, etc. Many people are using shiplap as an accent wall in their bedroom, behind the bed; in their office, bathroom and living rooms. Or above a fireplace.
If doing just a wall, pick a wall that is manageable: look for a wall that is manageable that needs a pop of texture. So, don’t pick the largest, longest wall in your home. Look for small walls or an accent wall space. If you have a bathroom with an outside vanity, shiplap above the vanity is a great place to start. Then with a new mirror and light fixture, you have cheaply updated your vanity/bathroom.
Texture: some shiplap is very smooth while others are more textured or rough. You can sand it down if you want more of a smooth finish. You can also paint or stain the shiplap as well. White wash shiplap is pretty standard. You can also pick varies sizes board sizes. Some are smaller in width while others are larger which depends on your ceiling height. You might go for wider boards if you have higher ceilings. But I think you get more of an impact with smaller boards, and lots of them.
I included a photo of our backdoor organizer that has shiplap on the backing as well. This shiplap is not attached to the wall but to the organizer.
I love our shiplap wall. I get compliments on it all the time and I love the way it looks in our home. Anything that adds texture and dimension gets people’s attention. For our white and grey house, this was an easy, affordable, cheap update to a focal wall. Would I shiplap more walls? Why, yes I would.
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