Super simple way to upgrade your home / apartment with designer-grade cladded / slat wall panels! Getting that designer look in your home doesn’t have to be hard or expensive! Learn my budget-friendly DIY hack to get a cladded slat wall for only $37!

via Team Coco on GIPHY

ANYWAYS, slat walls are all the rage right now. I have wanted one for a while, but I kept getting deterred by the cost of them. Wood is so expensive lately….

That’s why I am SUPER proud of this hack! So I wanted to show you a comparison to help get you guys as excited as I am about it.

Here is a quick overview of your different slat wall options:

OPTION	Home Depot / Wayfair Panels	Plywood DIY Slat Wall	Etsy Slat Boards	My GENIUS Solution
COST	$150-200+	$84.88 / plywood sheet + cost of paint for wall	$100+ + cost of shipping from Latvia	$37
TOOLS REQUIRED	Saw Nail gun	Table saw or long saw track + saw Nail gun	Saw	Saw
RENTAL FRIENDLY?	NO	NO	NO	YES
COLOR	Limited color selection	Customizable	Limited color selection	Customizable

If you would have told me that I would have been able to create a DIY slat wall hack that is easier AND cheaper than your other options, I would have told you that it wasn’t possible. Let alone finding a way to make it RENTAL FRIENDLY!

If you don’t love my slat wall, but you still want to do an accent wall, keep scrolling to see my Accent Wall Pinterest board for additional inspiration!

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STEPS

 I recommend checking out my video on YouTube because I have a time-lapse of the entire process. And be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel! 

So this is what I was starting out with…

That wall just felt so bare and like it needed some love.

SLAT WALL STEPS:

1. FIRST, measure the space that you want to put the slat wall

• For example, how tall is your wall that you want to put your slat wall on?
• Cassie Tip: When it comes to measuring things like the ceiling height, I like to use a laser measure since it can be difficult / frustrating to measure the ceiling height with measuring tape!

2. SUBSEQUENTLY, figure out how many boards you will need

• Since I was making it the width of the peel and stick wallpaper, I laid the roll on the ground and laid the boards with the little spacer I used between them to see how many rows of boards I would need.
• Then based on the height of the wall you want to put them on, figure out how many boards you will need for each row. I needed about 2.5 boards per row.

3. FOLLOWING THAT, put up the peel and stick wallpaper

• If you haven’t put up peel & stick wallpaper before, then check out my blog about it or my YouTube video on how to do it!
• I just used one row of the peel and stick wallpaper, but if you want a wider slat wall, you could easily line up multiple rows of the peel and stick wallpaper!

4. AFTERWARDS, match the boards that you will be grouping together by their shade/grain to make them look like one single board (optional)

• Even though these were the same boards, they still had varying shades (see image below)

• So, in order to get it to look like each row was a single board (and not obvious that I was connecting multiple smaller boards), I tried to group them together by their shade.
• Since I needed 2.5 boards for it to be my desired height, I did groups of 3.

• I am extra, so I also tried to line up the lines/grooves on them as well. To make sure I didn’t mess it up when it was time to glue them all together, I labeled them on the back (e.g., 2M was the board that was supposed to be in the middle, then the numbers on the ends of the board clarified which side was supposed to connect to the top board and the bottom board).

5. SUBSEQUENTLY, cut the boards

• Cut the ends of the boards to make the boards fit together perfectly (optional) — I included an image below to try to show what I mean. Ignore my face… Just know that I am willing to put up an embarrassing picture of myself because I think it might be helpful for you. 🙂 Alternatively, check out my youtube video around 3:40 to see what I mean!

• THEN, pick which board of each group you want to cut (e.g., if it has knots that you don’t like) and cut those boards to be your desired height (e.g., to get the boards to fit from your floor to ceiling)

6. FURTHERMORE, sand the boards

• Luckily, these are project boards, so they are already pretty smooth and did not require a lot of sanding!
• I just used a simple sanding block!

7. SUBSEQUENTLY, stain the boards with your desired stain

• I used the RetiqueIt Barnwood gel stain because I have used it before and always gotten positive results (like my pantry door update, my kitchen table update, my office shelves update, etc), but there are many options!

Cassie Tips:

• A key way to make your home look cohesive is to use some repetition. So if you have a particular stain that you have used in other areas of your home, I would consider using that if it would look good in this area so you can keep that cohesive look!
• If I had to do it over again, I would probably have used a pre-stain conditioner to get a more even stain.

8. THEN, glue the boards to the peel & stick wallpaper

• I used my clear construction adhesive with my caulk gun

• I had these square dowels leftover from my bathroom vanity update that I used as the spacers between the boards to keep the space between them consistent.

• And I would also keep using a level to make sure that I wasn’t making the rows go completely crooked!

And that’s it!

Closing Comments:

UNDOUBTEDLY, check out my recommended products page if you like the decor / shelves I used!

ADDITIONALLY, check out my Accent Wall Pinterest board if you want to get additional inspiration!

LASTLY, be sure to comment to let me know your thoughts or if you have any questions! And please share any pictures if you were able to recreate this in your home!

Don’t forget to check out my entertainment suggestions!