How to Install Shiplap - DIY Accent Wall

Hey guys, welcome back for this weekend project. We'll be transforming this blank wall by adding shiplap. If you enjoyed this video or found it helpful, please consider subscribing. The very first thing we need to do here is to remove the baseboard so that we can add our shiplap. And as you just saw me do, it is crucial to score along the top of the baseboards. That way when you're pulling them off the wall, you're not tearing off the paint with the caulking. With that out of the way, I could butt up the shiplap piece against the baseboard, make a mark, and cut that bit away with my multi-tool. Now we're doing something a little bit different. We're going to be installing some wired speakers for a surround sound system in my buddy's house. So here I'm just drawing a line and then cutting away a notch in the drywall so that the cord can fit through there and sit flush behind the shiplap panels. Because this wall is 14 feet wide, it means that one board can't span the entire way. So we're going to have to use two pieces. Now in order to make that connection as seamless as possible, I recommend mitering these corners. That way when you butt them up together, there's not going to be a visible crack. So set your miter saw to 45 degrees and batch cut all of them. Now it is very important to make sure this bottom row is perfectly level because if it's not, it's going to throw the entire wall off. And if it is, it's going to make the whole job go really quick. Now to attach these to the wall, we're going to be using a combination of construction adhesive and finish nails. When you're installing shiplap like this, you really have two options of attaching it. The first route, which is the easy way out, that's how we're doing it here, we're throwing on some construction adhesive to the back side and then finish nailing it into the drywall just so that it is stuck on there and has time for that construction adhesive to cure. The second route is to mark where all the studs are, not use any construction adhesive at all, and just nail them directly into the studs with two and a half inch long finish nails. Whichever route you take is completely up to you. They're both perfectly feasible routes. It's just that this one is permanent, so don't expect to be getting this shiplap off the wall anytime soon. Notching around outlets is incredibly easy. We just used a tape measure and a speed square to mark where we wanted to cut and then used a jigsaw and a multi-tool to cut out those notches. As I mentioned before, it is very important to make sure that that bottom row is completely level because since it was level, we could just power through this. We didn't have to check if any one of these boards was level. We just knew that it was and we just kept stacking and stacking and stacking. The next thing we needed to do was drill out some holes so that we can run that speaker wire through the back of the shiplap. Something worth mentioning is that I used a table saw to rip the last piece of shiplap to width because it's very unlikely that they're going to match up perfectly from top to bottom of your wall. So we set the fence to the appropriate width and then we cut both of the shiplap pieces that were going to go against the ceiling. We then trimmed off the routed corner from one side of the trim that's going to go up against the walls and this piece of trim is going to hide all the imperfections between the different cuts we've made on the shiplap pieces. The next thing we needed to do was notch the side pieces of trim around the bottom baseboards and I just did that with my jigsaw. Unfortunately, I didn't have my wide-angle lens on when I filmed that and so it was just a close-up of the wall and it didn't show anything. So I don't have the footage for that but you can see the pieces of trim on the side and I also went back and puttied in all of the different nail holes and sanded it all flush. So now there's really only a couple things left and that is to paint the wall and install the speakers and we had purchased pre-primed shiplap MDF so all we was just one coat of paint and got really good even coverage. So finally I could go around and caulk all the seams where all the baseboards all the trim met up and where the shiplap boards met the ceiling and once that was completed we just put the outlet covers back on installed the speakers and we could call this project done. So that's it for this one if you enjoyed the project please like and subscribe and I'll catch you in the next one.