Powder Room - Super Easy & Cheap Shiplap

Updated 6.11.21

Heeeyyy!! How ya doing? Okay, this powder room has kicked my butt! What I wanted to be a quick 2 week project has snowballed into a month long project. What the heck? It's a tiny little powder room!! Oh, well, it is what it is....

Powder Room Shiplap

Once we get rolling into this powder room series, you'll see how easy projects GROW! 😝 And if you missed the Powder Room Problems & Inspiration, you can check that out!

But today I'm going to focus on the

Super Easy & Cheap Shiplap

So, the first day was tearing off the trim and that stupid wallpaper.... I wasn't sure if it was going to be a nightmare, or smooth sailing. Turns out that it was a little of both!

Powder room demo

The wallpaper part was a breeze! It literally just peeled off. Thank You Jesus!! 🙌 The trim part... not so much. That basically ripped off sections of drywall. Ugh!!

Trim rips off drywall

After I finished taking off the trim, I got right into repairing the wall, since that was going to take time to dry, sand, prime, etc...

repaired dry wall

Any section that I didn't repair will be covered by shiplap! 👍

I couldn't WAIT to start shiplapping. Is that even a word? I always get so excited about starting a project, but then comes the bending, measuring, cutting, remeasuring, recutting.... hahaha. But I love it. Especially when it looks sooo good!

But before I started that fun part, (actually, if you look carefully, I already started a small strip on the bottom...but...)  I realized I probably should sand ALL the stripes and paint the upper portion of the wall. 

That should be a simple task! And it was, after I sanded down all the repairs, primed the repairs, re-sanded the repairs and primed again.... then I could paint. Whew!  I painted it a nice gray that we have in the kitchen, Valspar Polar Star. (Which I ended up changing after everything was all said and done!) 🤪  More on that later...

Okay baacck to shiplap...  I've used this same technique in a couple of places in our home and even in one of our rental properties. It's cheap, simple and easy!

Here's where I did an accent wall in our kitchen. It was a fun project, we used plywood to have more grain in the wood. Check it out, 'The Very Cheap Plank Wall'.

coffee bar plank wall

And we just finished this accent wall in our master bedroom. I just LOVE our master bedroom makeover. ❤️ You can check out that post here, How To Build An Accent Shiplap Wall.

Accent Shiplap wall

To get this really cheap and easy shiplap, I went to Home Depot and found an employee to help me pull a couple of 8x4 ft. sheets of underlayment down. The are usually around $13 a sheet. (Which is soooo cheap!) 

Then we rolled them back to the saw and he cut them into 6 inch strips. Lowes won't do the cuts for me, which I think is dumb. But Home Depot has ALWAYS been more than willing and usually never charges me for the cuts.

I would really prefer to cut them at home, if I had the time and ability to cut them myself. The cuts at Home Depot can be a bit jagged, either from pushing them through the saw too fast or most likely a dull saw blade. When we've been able to cut them at home, the cuts are nice and smooth.  Oh well, this girl didn't have time for that! If the strips are a bit rough, I will sand the edges quickly to smooth them out, pretty simple. (I've learned to ask the guys to cut the strips slowly. That really minimizes the jagged cuts.)

I got all my strips home and got to work. I figured on one strip 3 inches wide, then 7 full 6 inch strips.  Remember, I wanted to makes sure I was above the outlet, but UNDER the light switches. So, I had to do some math... and double and triple check that math!!! No mistakes this time!

Next, I pulled out our trusty air compressor and nail gun and got to work!

Shiplap progress

Basically, to install the shiplap, you need to measure the wall, cut to fit and nail it up. Be sure to mark where your studs are, because you want to nail the shiplap into studs to secure it to the wall.

Shiplap miter cuts

These miter cuts are NOT fun.... especially when you have a cheap chop saw that isn't exactly on point.  I think I'm going to splurge on a new one for Christmas! 😍

Shiplap miter cuts

I made due and got them done. They might not be perfect, but no one will really notice, especially with a little wood filler. 😉

Shiplap progress

It worked out perfect! I left exactly enough room for a piece of 1x2 for the trim piece on top. 🙌 You can barely see the light switch in this photo to the right.

Super Easy and Cheap Shiplap

You might have noticed that I didn't show you much of the back wall.... well, there's a reason.  Last minute, I decided to tear the sink out.... 😯

Oh, yes I did!! You can see how things turned out, if you click on Powder Room Progress!

The whole powder room is finished now! You can see how beautiful it turned out here, Farmhouse Powder Room Makeover Is Finished!

Incase you want to pin for later!

Super Easy and Cheap Shiplap

Thanks for reading!
Blessings!
Lori

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