Oh I am so happy to share this project with you! Those of you that follow us on Instagram have seen this project from the beginning, and I am so pumped to finally show you the whole thing! Here is how my DIY plank wall in my entryway turned out…
Really this is such a simple project! I actually started and finished the entire planked portion of the wall in one day. That’s the part I will show you today.
So… Let’s get started!
First, to keep the cost of the wood down, I decided immediately to use a favorite product for the planks. Many of you have heard us talk about PureBond Plywood. It’s an amazing hardwood plywood that we use on so many of our furniture pieces. What’s so cool about it? Well, it’s made in the good ol’ USA. It’s formaldehyde-free making it safe for me and my family. It’s affordable! You get the look of a beautiful hardwood at the cost of plywood, and it’s made from reusable resources. But, our very favorite thing about it is what it looks like. It’s BEAUTIFUL! Perfect for this plank wall.
Since learning about it a few years ago, we made it our go-to brand for plywood. It was an easy choice!
You can get PureBond at the Home Depot. I decided to go with 1/2″ oak for my wall. It comes in a huge 4′ x 8′ sheet which is next to impossible to get in the car with 5 kiddos in tow. That’s why I let Home Depot do most of the work for me!
I had the nice man in the lumber department rip the sheet down into boards. When I started to tell him what sizes I needed, he did look at me like I was a bit bonkers, but he had it done in no time.
My wall space I covered is 9ft long. I went 6ft of the wall. For this project I used two sheets of the 1/2″ maple. This kept the cost of wood under $80 peeps! WOOHOO!
Here are the rips I had him make…
SHEET 1 –
6 cuts at 4″
4 cuts at 6″
SHEET 2 –
2 cuts at 6″
4 cuts at 8″
So each of your pieces will be the inches shown above by 8ft. Load it in your car and take it home!
I decided to use 5 different stain colors for this wall. This is Varathane stain. It dries in under an hour and only requires one coat. You can find these at the Home Depot.
I stained the boards before I cut and attached them. Once they were dry I used my Ryobi Corner Cat sander with a 120 grit paper to distress the wood and give it a fun vintage look.
I used my miter saw for all my cuts. This wood is thin and easy to cut. You could easily use a small hand saw like this one…
This is actually the first saw I started with before upgrading to my big girl saw 🙂 It will do the trick perfect… You will just need to throw in a little more elbow grease.
So there really isn’t any set trick to deciding on cut size. I eyeballed everything. I knew I didn’t want any of my vertical breaks to be in the same place and I also tried to line the planks up where I wouldn’t have 2 the same size stacked on top of each other.
For example, here is how I started the wall.
You can see that my bottom board is 4″. The next one is 8″. I was sure to use different stains on both of my 8″ pieces and then another different stain on the 6″ piece above it. It’s kind of a puzzle. As I would attach them, I would measure the leftover space and cut my next piece to size. It’s really similar to doing a puzzle and super easy.
I did add a small space between each break in my wood. I used pennies for this part. We happen to have a ton on hand and it does the job perfectly 😉
Attaching the wood to the wall is really the easiest part! I know you all know how much I LOVE my Ryobi AirStrike nailer.
This tool made attaching the wood a breeze. I didn’t have to lug a cord or compressor around… Just popped the battery in and shot a few nails into each piece. EASY PEASY!
Now for the outlets…
I did have to work around 2 different outlets. MAKE SURE YOUR BREAKER IS FLIPPED OFF for this part. You do not want to do any work on your switches if the power is on… Bad move. After removing the switch plate, I used my jigsaw to cut a small rectangle the size of the electric box. Then, I pulled the inside of the switch forward towards the front of the wood, and used small wood screws to attach the switch to the wood on the wall.
This is what they looked like before I reattached the plate.
Here is another shot about halfway done…
And a shot of the plank wall done before I added the top… Please excuse the tragic lighting and lovely setup at the bottom ;-)…
Monday I will be sharing how I created the shelf on the top! It is easy as well and really dresses the plank wall up a bunch!
For now… Here are a few more shots of her finished up!
What do you think?? Totally doable, right??
Thank you SO much for stopping by! I would LOVE for you to share this and PIN it with your peeps below! Let me know if you have any questions at all!
~Whitney
Just want to say THANK YOU for the inspiration! Wanted to do something just like this in my entry way and I love the way it turned out!
Hi! Can you tell me what type of wood you used for yours and what stain color/brand? It’s beautiful.
Hi Retta! It is actually pergo flooring! It comes like that already, all I had to do was fit the pieces together on the wall and nail them to the wall!
Great idea! Do you know about how many cases of pergo it took? Do you know the color of yours? Thank you for the information.
Hi. I love this! How did you hide the nail holes?
Hi. I have a couple questions for you. Did you use any adhesive to attach the pergo? Did you just nail to studs? What size finishing nails did you use?
Thanks.
Did you use grout to fill in the spaces? Why did you use spacers if not?
Absolutely Love your Plank Wall! I will be sharing later today at http://www.thepaintedtableboutique.blogspot.com
This is such an amazing project and such an amazing addition of character that you can put into your home. I had a quick question on the pennies as well…what do you do after the pennies are put in place and the wall construction is finished? I would assume you remove the pennies but what do you use as the filler in the gap space left behind?
Can you tell me more about your concrete floors? My husband and I have considered removing all flooring in our downstairs rooms & having the concrete stained. Is this something you recommend, what color, what finish? Any info you can provide would be helpful! Thanks!
That is really beautiful. When I first looked at I thought it was brick. I hope some day soon to own a home and get to make a lot of your projects to fill it. Have to make sure I have room in the garage to build. You are such an inspiration.
Our home depot does not carry the maple pure bond plywood on hand, and would need to be ordered which would cost $100 in shipping. They do have the birch pure bond plywood, would that work to get the same looking result?
Yes! All of the pieces have a ‘rustic’ side and a smooth side. You can choose the one with more or less wood grain pattern showing. Either side will be beautiful!
Awesome, thank you!
Doing this on the wall going down into our basement! I am VERY excited! Wondering, did you varnish after staining? Also, are those concrete floors? did you do them yourself?
Wondering if you grouted or used something between the planks to finish it?
off topic are your floors concrete?
did you make the hook board as well???
What a great idea. I also love the floors! Are they stained concrete?
You mentioned this plank wall coming in at under $100 does this include the stain you bought? Also do you have the “How to” and source list for the mantel piece with the hooks above the plank wall?
Love your plank wall. Did you start your first board right on top of your baseboard? Or, did you remove baseboards first and start your boards behind the baseboard?
Love it! Just wondering how long the wall is and what type of flooring is in the entry way.