by Edward on Jan 30, 2014
in Rustic Home Décor Times
Learn how to build a barn board wainscot chair rail or barn board sided wall transforming your room to a rustic cabin with extraordinary results!
Reclaimed is the fancy word for “barn boards” or lumber taken from a building, shed, or flooring that is being remodeled or demolished. This material can be an absolute dream for a rustic cabin look that you may be looking for, and besides that, you are being “Green”!
Finding the material can be a challenge unless you just luck out and fall into a honey hole of lumber. Craig’s list is an option but many times folks think their material may be worth more than it actually is so do some digging. The rewards are worth it.
Barn Board Wainscot with Chair Rail
A vertical barn board wainscot type vertical application of boards that are about three to four feet in length. You can finish the top with a horizontal board that goes across the top. Rough boards are great here. You can sand them if you want and can bring out a brighter color or you can leave them distressed, you have lots of options. Some will stain them and others still leave them alone as is. Sand one of your boards and check it out. A miter saw is real nice to use for this job. If you do not have one, borrow or even rent. I use fine finish nails to apply the boards right to the dry wall underneath, just make sure you get ones long enough for your siding boards.
Barn Board Horizontal Wall
This application is to simply nail the boards end to end horizontally across the room. I tend to start at the top of the ceiling and go across. Depending upon how closely the boards fit together, you may need to sand or use a plane to even out your edges to limit the gaps between the boards, or not? You may like the way it looks. That is what is cool about the primitive rough look. You may decide just to do a single wall to get the look you want. You can rip the boards with a table saw to make some matching trim boards to finish the floor edge and even the ceiling if you like what you see.
Still can’t find boards? How about pallets? Would take some work to take the boards apart but I have seen some beautiful wood work made with wood pallet boards that run horizontally just as described above. May take a lot of wood pallets, but hey they are cheap!
Whatever you decide, reclaimed lumber for rustic walls is a great choice!
