How To Install Board And Batten Trim

How To Install Board And Batten Trim

It’s clear everyone is falling head over heels for the farmhouse style and for our Modern Farmhouse we wanted to do Board and Batten Trim in various places inside and out. This is about 500 bucks of MDF and a half days work but adds tons of character to your project. This DIY project is very easy to handle with a medium level skill set and basic tools.

Custom Board and Batten inside our Farmhouse already is making a huge impact! In our case we already had smooth textured walls so we only had to do the trim details,  if you have heavy orange peel textured walls you can use sheets of Masonite first and then build the trim on top for a smooth look.

I did 3 different versions of designs I thought would go well in this home. Other cool Farmhouse interior trim ideas would include Ship lap MDF siding which we will have to save for another project.

Board and Batten

Here is what you will need for this DIY Board and Batten project:

  • 2 1/2″ pre primed MDF strips
  • 3 1/2″  pre primed MDF strips
  • 5 1/2″ pre primed MDF strips
  • Construction Adhesive
  • Finish Nail Gun with 2 1/2″ 15 gauge nails
  • Paintable Caulk
  • Tape Measure
  • Level
  • Chop saw
  • Wood Filler
  • Table saw (optional)

Board and Batten interior wall on Modern Farmhouse

 

First we calculated what looked good with spacing, here I went with 20″ on center.  I used blue painters tape to get an idea of what it would look like before committing to the layout. Here is a tip, the battens will not land on studs so we used finish nails and Liquid nails adhesive to hold them to the wall. The nails just keep them in place until the glue dries.

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All this pre-primed MDF trim is available at your local home improvement store. It has crisp sharp edges, make sure and don’t buy the soft edge version. With a level first set your top piece in place and adhere it. Next we did the 6″ baseboard.

Cut each batten individually one at a time to get a tight fit. These battens are 3.5″ wide and the baseboard is 5.5″.  The top rail we ripped another strip at about 1.25″ for a small shelf detail. We will paint the Board and batten semi gloss with then the walls eggshell. In my case its all going to be white but will be a great detail once we are finished.

When you are done use DAP putty to carefully fill seams and nail holes. Each Batten should be caulked along both vertical sides!

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The side of the staircase was a perfect place to do a Board and Batten Feature Wall, here I went with more narrow battens at 2.5″ wide and ran them all the way up to the ceiling. In the dining room picture below I changed up the design a bit also and added the extra rail.

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The exterior board and batten was done by first removing existing siding and wrapping the house with house wrap, commonly called Tyvek. We then hung 4×8 sheets of Smooth Hardie Panel. Make sure and use Z Bar flashing where the horizontal seams of the Hardie Panel meet to prevent water from getting in.

It’s best to land the seam on the existing 16″ on center stud spacing and then use the battens to hide the vertical seams. We opted for 1 x 2.5″ Hardie Trim for the Battens and spaced them 16″ on center. Make sure and caulk everything good before you paint.

If you changed the spacing and didn’t land on existing studs you could screw and glue the battens if needed. We are really excited about the transformation, these small details are going to go a long way on the finished project.

The way this Board and Batten exterior siding plays off the new Shed Dormers we built is really making this Farmhouse look comforting and welcoming.

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Siding and Mud

Siding and Mud

My new construction project is running very smoothly. After passing the inspection on my house wrap Monday, we were finally able to start putting the Hardi Siding up. I have really been anxious to see what the house will finally look like after all the rough work that gets buried and nobody will see. Now comes the fun part, which actually gives the house its personality. What’s inside the walls is just as good as you guys know, but this part is what I’ll look at every day.

First, I framed the windows with 1 x4″ Hardi Trim. The Hardi Lap Siding on the bottom goes up pretty fast in 12 foot lengths with a 7″ reveal, I went with the smooth version to look clean. The Hardishingle Staggered Edge style up top on the other hand, is quite labor intensive. The pieces are only 48″ wide and go up with a 6″ reveal, but really give the house some dimension and texture.

I ran a 1×8″ dividing band board with a 1×2″ shelf on top to separate the styles and add even more detail. The siding comes in primer, but oddly enough the color is similar to what we will actually be using for paint. We are now on our second wall, I can see this siding project stretching out to several weeks as there is tons of detail work and not much room around the house for the scaffolding, but its looking great!

The second inspection we passed this week was on Thursday, for the drywall screw spacing. The mud crew was on standby to start taping and floating everything once the inspector signed off on the hanging  job. Once again, this is an extremely specialized crew. Different guys than the drywall hangers last week. We are putting one of the best drywall crews in San Diego on this project and after the whole house is taped and floated we’ll be doing 2 coats of a level 4 smooth hand-troweled texture.

In order to keep up my construction pace, I ordered all the pre-hung interior doors last week, bought the Red Oak unfinished hardwood flooring material this week, and am currently about ready to pull the trigger on the millworks package. It’s all about thinking 2 steps ahead to make sure you don’t run into a 3-week wait for a special order, which in my case is just about everything.

Siding and Insulation

Siding and Insulation

We finally passed all rough-in inspections and have now hung all the insulation. It took 2 tries with   my hvac sub contractor, he forgot to strap down the furnace and didn’t run hard pipe gas line through the unit so we had to call for a second inspection after having him come fix the two issues. These are small details which he should have caught but nonetheless we got all the signatures now on our inspection card and the City inspector is starting to warm up to me a bit now that he sees we know what we are doing. Right after passing I scheduled the insulation to be hung the next day and its called in for an inspection for tomorrow. I insulated the exterior walls and complete sub floor.  This is over and above what my permit called for but having all the walls opens provides such an obvious opportunity to save energy and provide someone with a product we can be proud of. I’m sure the new homeowner will unknowingly be thanking me every month when they pay their electric bill. With all the walls open I also ran Cat-6 and cable wires to all the bedrooms. We are in a heat wave right now in San Diego, I wouldn’t have wanted to be the guy under the house all day itching and scratching trying to hang this stuff. I jumped outside and started trimming out the exterior also, I re-framed the front porch and used 1×3 tongue and groove for the decking that’s historically correct. It’s a little more than I could have spent on another material but its details like this that will pay off in the end and especially since its on the front of the house which is always the most important to focus on.

I also got some of my windows installed and I’m telling you they are so neat. TM Cobb makes a mighty fine wooden double hung window for historic homes. I’m totally happy and cant wait for the missing 2 to arrive with the Victorian front door so I can install them too.

Here’s the bank of 4 windows on the study or optional 5th bedroom. This room is going to be killer with all the light that’s coming in. There was a lot of missing trim on the corners of the house that was probably removed when the metal siding went on. This stuff is easy to replace so we’ve been working our way around the house getting everything back to how it should be.

For the rear master suite room addition I purchased 10″ cedar beveled channel siding from La Mesa Lumber at $2.50/foot. This is the first time I’ve used it and boy is it nice. It comes pre-primed and its very straight, unlike the T117 siding I’ve frequently used on the Craftsman bungalows. We wrapped the room addition with Tyvek first of course and are now putting the 773 siding up. It’s great to use all the correct materials, in this case its costing me about $1400.00 for this siding but its going to be worth it. The historical review board here in San Diego wouldn’t even have let me use Hardi Siding if I wanted to. My colors were also approved this week so once the exterior trim and siding is all complete I’m going to have 2 crews in simultaneously painting the exterior of the house and hanging the drywall on the inside. Once the drywall is hung we have to get a nailing inspection where they verify spacing on the screws before we tape and float over it. Stay tuned, we’re going to see some dramatic changes soon. Also, Get on over to Biggerpockets.com and check out the video interview I did with Josh. I break down our business model and explain what kind of projects we look for.

Hidden Surprises for Fathers Day

Hidden Surprises for Fathers Day

First and foremost, Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there! The coolest thing we did this week at The Painted Lady was to remove all of the 1970’s Sears metal siding, of course we recycled it to help save the planet. This is the third time I’ve done this on a historic house but I’ve never removed 2 different layers to get down to the original wood. It’s always a gamble because you never know of the condition underneath but its been my experience that the asbestos or vinyl that’s on top actually preserves and protects the old wood and I’ve always been surprised to see near perfect siding with minimal paint jobs buried underneath. The more the homes get painted over the years, the harder it is to prep so in this case when I found the original yellow paint job with nothing cracking or peeling I was excited.  As we removed it, I found tons more hidden architectural details that these Victorian houses are famous for so I had to tell myself it must have been a pretty good salesman in a polyester jacket who was able to convince the homeowner with his “never paint your house again” pitch years ago to cover all the character of their house up. These cool details in the trim on the house are going to put my paint job over the top.

We also finally got the foundation poured, it took 2 full trucks with almost 20 yards of concrete total, as well as a pumper rig to fill up the spaces we left open around the house in the forms. Once filled we removed the forms while it was still green and hand troweled the finish. Its harder to work with but I used the 1.5″ rock aggregate although most guys use the pea gravel mix. Since the stem wall is 3 feet high in some spots I wanted it to be as strong as possible. This house isn’t going anywhere now for another 100 years. The Historical Review Board also asked me to replace the visable portions of the old chimneys in order to keep the house period correct. The old ones were crumbling and dangerous and I deleted them from inside the house to maximize my floorspace and intended not to re stack the exterior, they weren’t fireplaces inside but only basically a brick flue for stove exhaust. I found some used bricks on Craigslist and had them re-stacked just from the roof line up, I had to knock this out before the roofers show up on Monday.

I finally met with some sub contractor drama this week from one of my subs, I knew everything was going too good to be true. It’s crazy, but unfortunately I cant share the story although it involves the FBI. Hopefully he’ll have his helper finish up next week so I can call for rough in inspection and be ready to insulate and drywall after the new roof goes on.

Plumbing Passed, Pendings Up

Plumbing Passed, Pendings Up

We passed plumbing rough-in and top out inspections this week at Target House and have now got started on the electrical. My electrician is getting a slow start so I am kind of disappointed but its par for the course here in Land of Manana, especially when you are getting great prices. I am going to stay on his ass all week and try for an inspection Friday. On the exterior I am completely done with all the siding and window trims on the new portion of the house and have started working my way forward replacing various sections on the original siding where I moved windows or there was damage. There will be alot of changes once I get up front rebuilding the porch, porte cochere and columns so that’s exciting. On the new back porch ceiling I used authentic 1×4 tongue and groove bead board, sweet!

The San Antonio housing market certainly showed signs of Tax Credit fever while everyone scrambled last week for the handout. I’ve been tracking the Pending sales and as you can see they rose by about 100 houses for each week in April all the way up until the cut off of Friday. It will be interesting to see 2 things from here, if the Pending sale growth continues and how many pendings actually close and turn into solds. The San Antonio Spring buying season typically is just now heating up, we’ll see how bad the tax credit affected future demand shortly. There are currently 11,455 homes for sale, down from 11,697 last weekend.

Week                          # Pendings

Mar 29-April4                    246

April 5-April 11                 363

April 12-April 18               430

April 19-April 25              456

April 26-May 2                  556