Office Plank Wall

Do you remember that office makeover that I keep talking about? You know, the one that hasn’t had an update since I shared the freshly paint walls?

Well, today I’m actually sharing an update, our office plank wall! Oh happy day! Just like plank walls do, it’s completely changed the entire room. And now I have about 100 projects to do because I can’t get them out of my head. The office is officially ready for projects…

At least this side of the room looks good… the other sides, ummm not so much, they’re definitely “in progress” at the moment.

 Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

Here’s how we did it:

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Supplies:

Just like the other plank walls we’ve done in the house, see here, here and here, we used 4 x 8 sheets of 1/4″ flooring underlayment. We used our table saw and ripped them down into 5 1/2″ wide strips.

Then, Anthony started at the ceiling, made sure the plank was level and nailed it in place…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

Because our ceilings aren’t level, most aren’t, Anthony used the level to make sure the plank was level and left a gap at the top, which I would later caulk.

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

We kept adding planks as we went down the wall…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

And because the boards weren’t as long as our wall, we randomly cut them to size to create a scattered look…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

We used a nickel as our spacer…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

And kept adding planks until we reached the electrical outlets near the floor…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

Anthony traced around them, then used the jigsaw to make them fit…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

Then, to fill all those nail holes, I used the 3Mâ„¢ Patch plus primer spackling from the 3M Patch Plus Primer Wall Repair Kit…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

From the kit, I grabbed the spackling and putty knife first…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

I just scooped up a bit of the spackling…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

Then, spread it over the nail hole and pressed it in firmly to fill…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

Then I just wiped it smooth…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

And once it dried, I used the sanding block from the repair kit to gently sand each spot smooth…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

And just in case you’d like to see it in action, here’s a little video I shot… no laughing!

 

For any areas that got a bit of the spackling in the gaps…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

I just used the putty knife to remove it…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

Much better!

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

Once all 482 holes were filled and sanded, I wiped down the wall with a damp cloth to remove any dust…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

Then, I started caulking. I caulked along the ceiling and along the baseboard… Caulking makes all the difference!

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

Once the caulking dried, I started painting. I used a smooth roller and chose my go to white paint, Super White by Benjamin Moore®.

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

After two coats, I was left with this…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

I couldn’t wait to move my stuff back in…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

And for the time being, I’m totally forgetting that the other side of the room looks like a complete disaster…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

That’s such a minor detail when I have a plank wall to gaze at…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

There’s still a bunch of stuff to do in here, and lots and lots of organizing, but it’s nice to have a part of this room feel semi-done…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

Several new projects will be coming soon…

Plank Wall Tutorial by The Wood Grain Cottage

I can’t wait to show you more… exciting things are coming to the office!

I am proud to be a 3M- sponsored blogger, and, as part of my responsibilities, I get the opportunity to evaluate new products from 3M DIY. Opinions are my own and additional product used in the project were selected by me.

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55 Comments

  1. I just can’t get enough of your home! It looks so nice. May I ask, where is your piece of furniture from?

    1. THANK YOU so very much, Anna! I bought the white office furniture from American Furniture Warehouse. I hope that helps! 😀

    1. Hi Cassie! Welcome to the WGC! So happy to have you! I bought the wood calendar from Decor Steals. I hope that helps! 😀

  2. Love the wall turn out so beautiful.I like your reef and was wonder if you made it i have seen them on other peoples blog .

  3. You are tooooo adorably cute! I love the video! The 3M Patch + Primer looks so easy to use, I’m definitely going to look for it at the store next time!

  4. Shayna says, 482 holes to fill, but who’s counting??!! Oh my goodness, how long did that process actually take? It is well worth it, your plank walls are fantastic looking.

    Corrinne

  5. oh stop. who cares if the other side is a disaster zone when this side looks like a magazine?!?!?! okay, well, if it was my house I’d care but seriously, Shayna… LOOOOOVE IT!!!!!

  6. Hi there! I am so happy to have finally seen how this is done! We have a semi-open floor plan with our kitchen and family room-all one ceiling and I think this will be a great way to hide some imperfections. Have you even done or seen a ceiling done in planking? Wondering how to trim it out against the wall…

    1. Hi Lisa! THANK YOU For the comment! I think that planking a ceiling would be fabulous! You could either do it just like we’ve done our plank walls, or you could use pine tongue and groove planking. Either way it would look amazing. To trim it out, you could use either quarter round, or an mdf product like we used on our board and batten walls in our living room: https://www.thewoodgraincottage.com/2013/12/06/how-to-install-board-batten/
      I hope that helps! 😀

  7. Beautiful wall and beautiful home! I read wall planking tuts whenever I find them. Want to do this so bad! Do you not caulk along the sides? If not, why? Thank you!

    1. Hi Karen! THANK YOU so much for the lovely comment! We do not caulk along the edge unless we use quarter round. In this case, I don’t caulk them because we left it as is. I’ve found that if you do caulk the sides, a bunch of the caulking gets between the planks and it has to be dug out. It’s just my personal preference not too… it’s not very much fun to scrape out the caulking. 😀

  8. I’ve been admiring all the planking in your home and considering doing this in our home as well. Problem is, we live on a ranch and that of course comes with a lot of dirt and dust. Since you are in the same boat, have you noticed dirt lingering in the space between the boards? Just like lovely open shelving in a kitchen, it doesn’t quite seem practical for our situation. What’s your experience? Beautiful home by the way!

    1. Hi Sarah! I completely know what you mean about the dirt and dust! Luckily, I haven’t noticed any of it collecting in between the planks. I’ve kept my eye out for it, but haven’t had any problems thus far! I hope that helps! 😀

  9. Thanks for the tutorial! I love love love planked walls and am thinking about adding them in our closet and nursery. But I have a question, did you removed your baseboard while planking your walls? I’d love to avoid that but I’m afraid that if we don’t it will look odd. We have the typical colonial baseboards.

    1. Thank you so much! We love our plank walls! When installing them, we left our baseboards on, and planked down to them. Once we got to the bottom, we custom cut the plank for the remaining gap. It honestly doesn’t look funny! Hope that helps! 😀

    1. Typically I use eggshell on all our walls. However, on the plank wall it’s a semi-gloss. I hope that helps! 🙂

  10. the plank wall is gorgeous. I also like seeing the woodgrain in the plank wall. What would you do to this if you wanted to just clear coat it? How would you deal with the nailholes or would you just let them show through?

    1. Thank you so much, JJ! Hmmm… if I were to leave them original, I would probably use a matte or satin poly and brush it on. I would leave the nail holes showing. I hope that helps! 🙂

  11. Thanks for your blog, that’s the exact look we were looking for our dining room.
    We used 1/4 inch ply wood cut in planks and now that every thing is nailed on the wall I’m looking at the 1/4 wide irregular space left between the first plank and the ceiling.
    What kind of caulking did you use to fill that up ?

    1. We also had a gap, but we filled it with white painting caulk by Dap. It’s called “Alex”, and it works great! I hope that helps! 🙂

  12. Love your plank wall!!! We’re currently putting a nursery together for our first little one and I would love to do something like this. Did you find the paint beaded up in the gaps between the boards using a roller? And can you see in between the gaps? The wall I’m hoping to do ours on is currently painted with a square pattern using many different colors of paint. We’re unsure if we need to paint the wall first or if that would just be one extra unnecessary step.

    1. Thank you so much, Brittany! For the walls, I always use a super smooth skinny, wienie roller. There’s not any texture, so it doesn’t hold as much paint. For the most part, the paint doesn’t get in the gaps, but it will occasionally. I keep a putty knife handy to scrape between the gap. Problem solved! Also, if you have a bunch of color underneath the planks, you will be able to see any bright colors through the plank gaps. To be safe, I would paint the wall. I hope this helps! 🙂

    1. Hi Graham! Yes, we don’t prime our plank walls. I’ve never noticed a reason for it. The first coat of paint soaks in a tiny bit, but by the second, it looks great. Depending on the color you choose, you may have a light third coat. Especially if you are using a white paint. I hope that helps.

  13. Help!! I enlisted my son and his friend to put up the planks but they didn’t leave any space between each one and now it doesn’t look right even after painting. Is there anything I can do to make it look better other than take it all down??

    1. Hi Annie! Unfortunately, if it doesn’t look right, I’m not sure what else to do besides take the planks off the wall and start over. That would certainly be the best thing. I’m sorry!

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