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Thare be walls (haaaaaaaa – I KILL MYSELF), The Boy and I fancied them up. Remember how the room used to have floor to ceiling wood paneling:
Well guess what it has now? Beadboard paneling!!! Wait, it's not as crazy as it sounds…
See? So pretty! But Cris, you ask, how did you get from 1970's paneling to yummy cottage-y paneling? Well! Kick back, y'all, because Mama's gonna tell you.
First up, the decision to go with faux beadboard over real beadboard. I'd like to say that this was a carefully researched and discussed decision (ala John and Sherry) but, instead, it went a little something like this (as played out in the lumber section of our local Home Depot):
Me: I want vertical beadboard in the Master Bathroom.
The Boy: I'm not putting that in – it will take forever.
Me: I WANT VERTICAL BEADBOARD IN THE MASTER BATHROOM!
The Boy: No. It's too much work and I think it will cost a lot of money.
Me: BUT I WANT VERTICAL BEADBOARD IN THE MASTER BATHROOM! *falls on floor sobbing, kicking, and screaming*
The Boy: Look sheets of paneling that LOOK like beadboard.
Me: *jumps right up (and tear-free)* Where? How much? LET'S DO THIS!
Aaaand, scene!
Really, what it came down to was price. We are cheap (and lazy) and the Master Bathroom is small so we figured that beadboard paneling wouldn't look to cheap. And it was (in theory) very easy to put the beadboard up. But in reality – it blew. Because in order to get from drywall to this:
Your kitchen ends up looking like this:
That? Right there? IS A KITCHEN FULL OF SAWDUST! As in, The Boy (my new husband and love of my life), decided that instead of borrowing the table saw that a neighbor offered us – he would just cut everything in our kitchen with a jigsaw. I tried (tactfully… no really!!!) to point out what an epicly bad idea this was but he? Just. Would. Not. Listen.
And that's how I ended up with a shitload of sawdust covering EVERYTHING in my kitchen and my living room. And doesn't everyone love a nice, thick, even coating of sawdust in the room where they prepare food and in the room were they relax and watch TV (and blog)???
To be fair, after everything was said and done, The Boy acknowledged that he should have just borrowed the table saw to begin with. And I? Refrained from pointing out that I was right (instead opting to stare at him silently for a very long time). Anyhoodles… we managed to get the beadboard up on the wall with a combination of paneling adhesive and a few finishing nails (using his birthday gift from me – a new air compressor and nail/staple gun) and mucho sweato (all that sawdusto makeo me turn offo the air conditionero). Because the room was so small (and faux beadboard DOES NOT like to take paint), I went ahead and busted out the paintbrush and hand jobbed this one (Dirty!). I had Lowe's mix up a gallon of Olympic's Drifting Dune and fired away (no need for priming since the paneling came pre-primed).
I ended up doing about three coats (that paneling REALLY hated taking paint) over the course of two days. Each coat took me about 30 minutes (it's a really small room) but quite a bit longer to dry since Texas is so humid. I should also mention that I had to do a bit of spackling before this job was done. That, up there? Is a big ass cut that needed spackling from floor to ceiling. Each wall was wider that the sheets of 4′ wide paneling so I had to “join” them together using spackle, sandpaper, and paint. It turned out okay but I found that in a couple of places, I had to do several rounds of spackling to build it up to the same level as the paneling.
So! That's the walls. Have any of you put up beadboard in your home – either real or faux? How did you cut it? PLEASE tell me that someone else out there loves someone who monumentally screwed the pooch when it came this type of project? I can't be the only one out there…
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