When I was growing up, I wanted to be an interior designer. While we won’t go into why I didn’t pursue it – that has been one of the reasons I started this blog and instagram platform. To be able to tap into my creativity and passion for home decor and DIY. Up until now basically everything I’ve done has been for my home. Until now …

A mother (Erin) of one of Sebastian’s classmates contacted me about helping her design her son’s nursery! I’m so excited to take on a project and not only help design but install as well. I’ve decided to use this post as my “Project Diary” and share with you as I work on each part of this project.

Let me start by showing you the design board. Erin had already decided on an “ocean” theme stemming from an octopus print of her husbands. She had ordered the furniture and some bedding as well. I took those ideas and came up with a design spring board.

Now, I say spring board because we have already added in red withe the wall paper and curtains that have been picked out. I personally find it best to use a design board to collect my thoughts and ideas and see how things interact with each other. However, I rarely stick to them completely.

To start we are going to do the accent wall – Erin liked both the idea of wallpaper and the idea of a wood accent wall. So we went with both! The top third of the wall will be wall paper and the bottom two thirds will be the square type accent wall. See the sketch up below:

Now, moving forward this post will be ongoing. Each day I work on this project I will update you as a “diary post” – as this is my first time doing design and install for someone else. I’d like to be able to look back and see how it all went.

Sunday, June 9th – Pick Up Supplies

I had almost everything I needed to install the MDF board, except the boards themselves. I’m using 4×8 sheets (thats 4 foot by 8 foot). While the boards are light, the size makes them quite awkward. Luckily no one at Home Depot laughed at me as I balanced each sheet on my head in order to get them high enough to slide into the cart.

Monday, June 8th – Install MDF Board

Today we are covering the entire feature wall with 5/8″ inch MDF board. Since the top of the wall is going to have wall paper it is important to cover the texture already on the wall so that it doesn’t show through. I also decided to take it all the way down so the inner squares of the accent piece have a smooth inside as well making the whole thing look more custom.

While I have watched this done before on Instagram via Frills_and_Drills I have never actually done it so I was quite proud when I finished. I would suggest having a buddy to help when putting the larger pieces up. They aren’t that heavy but the size and thickness make it awkward to hold.

Fun Fact: I took a timelapse video of me putting up a piece of the MDF board that has now been seen over 800,000 thousand times on Tik Tok!

Thursday, June 11th – Baseboard & Vertical Boards

When I was here on Monday we ripped out the old (actually quite new, as the homeowners just built this house) baseboard and today we replaced it with 1 x 5’s the length of the wall. I had to notch out the corners which I thought was going to be a lot harder than it was. It makes me happy when things go smoothly, especially at someone else’s home!

I also brought precut to 63″ long – 1 x 3 1/2 boards. Two at each end to frame it in and four spaced throughout the middle to create the grid. Did as much wood filler and caulking as I could as well.

I did notice while I was there that one of the top MDF boards had started to bow. I’m not sure why but we’ll fix that next time.

Wednesday, June 17th – Horizontal Boards & Touch Ups

Today I brought my pre-measured, pre-cut horizontal boards and everything went smoothly for the first four. Then math smacked me in the face as per usual. I don’t know why me and numbers will never get along. Luckily they were too long and was easily fixed by shaving off a quarter of an inch and I was able to finish the grid.

I also replace the bowing MDF board, wood filled as many cracks and nail holes as possible and caulked every square for that clean custom look.

Right now we are going to be on hold until the wallpaper comes in and/or the homeowners like the paint that has been color matched to the wallpaper. Till then!

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