How to create a $250 Herringbone Accent Wall

It’s finally here! I get to reveal my herringbone accent wall that we just recently did in our master bedroom. If you want to read more about the kickoff to the project, you can do so here. This herringbone project was a labor of love, but we were able to do it for about $250 plus paint! So, look no further to learn how to create a $250 herringbone accent wall for your home!

Deciding to do a Herringbone Accent Wall

I was looking at my master bedroom and trying to decide what I could do to bring a bit of a custom feel to it and I landed on doing a herringbone pattern on the wall behind the bed. When I first planned it, I wasn’t sure if I was going to whitewash the wall, leave it plain or what … but I’ll show you what I decided below …

Getting started

To get started, we measured the wall to determine how much wood we would need for the wall. The wall was 15’ wide by about 9’ in height (from baseboard to crown molding). Then we headed to Home Depot to find the wood that would work. We thought about looking for a sanded plywood that would be thin and not cause issue with the existing outlets. Plus, the cost would be efficient and a paint job or wash would look perfect on top of it.

Shopping with my babies!

I brought the whole family shopping to Home Depot. Don’t I have the cutest shopping buddies? They had a heyday riding around in the cart helping my husband and I choose the right wood for our herringbone accent wall. At least they are all small enough to fit in the car cart!

So, as we looked around Home Depot, we found the perfect option. A 2’x4’ ¼” width sanded plywood. Since we had about 135 sq feet to cover and each sheet was 8 sq feet, we figured we would need roughly 18 sheets of them to cover our wall, with a little to spare.

We purchased our wood and some nails for our nail gun. We also got some lattice trim to frame the herringbone wall when we finish. and then we headed home! The total was just under $250!

Time to cut the planks

Once we got home we put the kids to bed, as it was getting late. Ben and I started cutting the wood into planks. We cut each 2’x4’ sheet into 2’x4” pieces. So, we got six strips per piece of plywood. Cutting all 18 pieces of plywood gave us 108 total pieces and we were ready to begin the following day … and we got it all cut in 45 minutes!

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The herringbone effect – Day ONE!

The next day came and since my husband was off work, he was gung-ho to begin on the herringbone accent wall. To start, we moved the furniture away from the wall and took off the outlet cover. Luckily, we only have one outlet on this wall! I also laid out the pattern on my bed so I could get a good visual of what we needed to do.

To officially start, we located the middle of the wall and drew a vertical line down. Then we took our first piece of wood and marked it 4” down (since our width of planks is 4”). Then, we angled the wood plank with the top corner on the line angled with the 4” mark on the line. That gave us our starting point for all the other pieces of wood. We used our nail gun and nailed in two at the top, middle and bottom.

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We continued down the line for our first vertical row and went as far down as we could without having to cut pieces. Then we did the second vertical row. We saved all the intricate cuts for last, so the full pieces went up on the wall first.

Day one of placing the wood planks ended with all full-size pieces nailed on. Looks pretty so far, huh?

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Day TWO – Herringbone accent wall!

Now on to day two … the time-consuming part of all the little cuts! But the end result is SO worth it! My husband did the bulk of the work measuring and cutting for each of the triangle areas we had left. We worked out a system of writing the measurements down and cutting several pieces at once. It took a good chunk of the day finishing up, but it was done on day two!

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Framing at the end …

And keep in mind you will be framing the wall when you’re done. So, some gaps against the edges are completely fine. You may also notice slight gaps as you are placing your herring bone planks. These are fine and give the wall more personality when it’s finished.

Plank’s up … now what?

First thing I did after we finished placing the wood planks was sand. I took a sanding block and grazed across the entire wall. It made it nice and smooth from any imperfections.

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Now that all the wall planks are nailed in the herring bone pattern on the wall, it was time to decide what to do to finish it up. I tried a white wash and it didn’t look quite right. I think if I had stained the wood first and then did a white wash it would have looked amazing, but white wash on this wood wasn’t the look I was going for.

As a result, I decided to prime the entire wall and paint it in Pure White, which is the same color as my trim. I grabbed my primer and rolled a quick layer on and let it dry. Then I rolled on two coats of Pure White. Since I am going to trim out the edges of the wall, I didn’t even need to get out a paintbrush to paint to the edges. The lattice trim will cover that!

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Paint that trim, too!

While I had the paint out, I went ahead and put a coat on the trim pieces. They were pre-primed, so they just needed a coat of Pure White and I’ll touch them up after I get them up on the wall.

Now that the paint is officially up on the herring bone accent wall, I go ahead and paint the remaining walls in my bedroom Sherwin Williams Sea Salt. I needed to get rid of the flat builder’s paint and this color pairs well with the white herringbone accent wall.

Sea Salt the adjoining walls!

With the Sea Salt up on the walls, I can now place my lattice trim pieces on the herringbone wall. We measure and cut the pieces to size and then nail them in. Since this is a frame for the wall, I go ahead and fill the nail holes with Drydex.

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I let that dry then I did a light sanding before painting. It wasn’t required, but I wanted the frame to look like one solid piece. I also used paintable caulk and caulked the side of the frame adjoining the Sea Salt walls so it looks nice and cohesive. Lastly, I do a final coat of paint on the trim and this wall is COMPLETE!

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TA-DA!

Is the wall beautiful, or what? The pictures do not do it justice! I am so in love with this wall!

And, now you know how to create a $250 herringbone accent wall for your home, too. Also, I’m sure you noticed we changed out our bed as well. I really wanted the wall to stand out in our room and our bed was getting old, so we purchased this new one. It really makes the wall POP and I cannot be more in love with this wall. Really, the best $250 I’ve spent in a long time!

What do you think of this herringbone wall? Plan to give it a try? Let me know in the comments below!

Be blessed!