How To Make Vertical Shiplap Paneling (on The Cheap!)

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Intro by Robin Steps by Ed

I LOVE a dramatic before and after – you too? And this room has me smitten. And this vertical shiplap paneling is a big part of my love. Vertical shiplap walls are timeless and bring so much character to a space – and they’re a simple and affordable DIY project!

Our vision was to create a cozy welcoming guest room that doesn’t feel like it’s in the basement. Have we achieved that?

I can’t get enough of this before and after! It was just a dreary, bland box that screamed BASEMENT! Maybe a step up from sending our guests into a dungeon room filled with hand me downs.

Instead of saying, “Welcome, friend” it said something more along the lines of, “Don’t get too comfortable. You aren’t staying long.”

Of course, as always, our second goal was to achieve this transformation on a budget. This project is a great example of doing more with less. See that lovely green panelling in the after photo? That cost us about $25 – including paint!

If you’re curious as to how we made beautiful vertical shiplap paneling on a budget, we’ve got you covered. It all started with leftover material from our wall to wall bookcase…and ended with gorgeous vertical shiplap walls!

Normally, I try to avoid going into our basement storage room/workshop. Ed and I have different approaches to storing things – and I let him express himself freely in there. It is absolute chaos! But he can find everything.

But one day, after we installed our IKEA hack built-in bookcase, I was forced to go in there. I think I fought it for a day and a half – but there was no avoiding that room. It was then I saw a cast aside material that I knew would make my already planned panelling so cheap!

The unused Billy bookcase backings!

If you’ve seen our bookshelf project you know that we amped up the character of them by backing them with faux brick. We didn’t use the backing that came with the shelves. Until now!

We measured the square footage and then checked the accent wall in question. If we planned carefully, there was enough.

Now, not everyone has bookcase backing lying around. But what we achieved here can be easily reproduced with cheap panelling.

diy vertical shiplap — That pillow!

That big (faux) window!

Those live edge treadle tables! 😍

Vertical Shiplap Paneling DIY

What You Need:

Enough fiberboard backing to cover the wall you’re panelling (we nearly ran out)
- OR 1/8″ MDF panel board
Baseboard
Trim for top
Table saw (or circular saw with cut guide)
Construction adhesive
finishing nails or brad nailer
Paint (we used Milk Thistle from Behr)

How to Make Vertical Shiplap Walls:

Step 1: Cut your panelling into strips.

vertical shiplap cutting strips — We determined that a panel width of 4.5″ was optimal – this made the best-sized strip and also kept waste to a minimum.

Rip on a table saw or use a circular saw with cut guide. (Get help – this material is floppy and the long strips are awkward!)

strips for vertical shiplap — We cut all the strips at once and took the pile to the room.

Step 2: Do a “dry run” and determine your optimal gap.

vertical shiplap gap — We tacked a few strips in place to determine what the optimal gap between the “boards” would be.

Turns out, the thickness of the strips (1/8″) was perfect!

When you come to fastening your finished pieces, be sure to work hard on the first few to get them level and straight. If you make a mistake at this point it will get exaggerated as you finish more.

After you get the first couple rows straight, it goes pretty quickly – gap with a spare piece, and nail a panel. Repeat a bunch of times.

Step 3: Fasten your strips in place – and learn from our mistake!

installing vertical shiplap — Fasten your pieces to the wall.

Notice no photo of us applying the adhesive – this is a mistake – we didn’t do that!

We thought we could do it all with nails and things would be fine. Wrong! You end up needing to use a LOT of nails, which means more filling and mess.

Learn from our mistake and use construction adhesive, too!

vertical shiplap seams — If you’re using fresh MDF material – you shouldn’t have the problem we did: scabbing together small pieces to stretch out our materials.

The funky part was determining where to hide the panel sections we needed to join. We didn’t have enough material to do full pieces all the way across.

So behind where the headboard of the bed would be, we cleverly (read, frugally) stitched together some scrap pieces to complete the look.

Trust us, a bit of filler and paint and no one will notice…

Step 4: Trim Out the Top

vertical shiplap trim — Lastly, we added a piece of pine trim to cap the whole wall.

It had the added benefits of hiding some ends and holding the panels to the wall a little more firmly (did I mention we neglected to use adhesive? Don’t neglect it.)

Step 5: Fill the holes, sand and paint.

And you’re done!

Decor sources:

Throw Pillow Fabric (I made the simple pillow using this tutorial.)
Sheets (So soft and pretty – and a great price.)
Coverlet and Shams (Yeah – I almost didn’t buy it when I saw who the “designer” was. Ha! But the quality is wonderful.)
Lamps (similar outside Canada)
Faux Pink Peonies
Faux boxwood topiary (similar) vase is thrifted
Panelling paint (green): Milk Thistle Behr
Trim paint: Soft Focus Behr