Beadboard Wallpaper Project

Let’s just start by saying this! I’m totally sold on the beadboard wallpaper.

Well, girls I just have to tell you that this project was even easier and looks better than I could imagine. If anyone had doubts about it from my first post, this just might change your mind. This beadboard wallpaper is amazing, that’s all I can say about it. It’s thick, probably 3-4 times thicker than regular wallpaper and I’ve put up regular wallpaper many time before. This is SO much easier to work with. You can cut it with scissors and it cuts like buttah. No shredding or crinkling. So, for those of you who LOVE the details…this one’s for you. Lots of pics, lots of details. I promise you, anyone can do this project. It went so well and turned out so pretty that I’m going to do something else with it. And I know that diehard REAL beadboard lovers will probably pooh-pooh this (and I am a REAL beadboard fan myself), but for those of us who do not have a garage full of power tools, this is the next best thing. I’ll go through the steps I used to get it all up there and trimmed out, so follow along with me.

For those who missed the Home Depot link in my first post, click here to order the wallpaper. This is the best price I found on it. It’s by Graham Brown and made in the UK.

So first thing is to measure wherever you are putting it and get yourself a yardstick to help keep a straight line. Measure on each side and hold the yardstick across and draw a line side to side with a pencil. That’s how I did it and it worked great. And trimming from top to bottom is easy, you just follow the lines.

Wet the back of it in the sink, let sit for 5 minutes. Book it, Dano. I really wanted to say that. Anyone besides me remember Hawaii 5-0? Guess cause I am 5-0, I would. Booking is when you let glue sit and activate so it adheres better. Now, here’s something I didn’t do. I didn’t sand my cabinets at all. I just went right over the painted surface, which was a little glossy, but it seemed to stick just fine and I didn’t have any problems with it. But, to be safe, you might want to lightly sand or degloss if your surface is glossy. That’s my disclaimer. I tend to take shortcuts, as you’ve probably all figured out by now.

My plain jane ends of the kitchen cabinets. Nothing special, but this treatment really makes them look SO much better.

Also an issue when we got our granite, to keep the countertops level, they had to add some shims underneath, which you can see (well, you can if you’re on your head, which doesn’t happen too much, but still) and I wanted to get some molding around the top of the cabinets to fix that little issue. So, this all worked together for me. I bought a small molding MDF piece that fits underneath the granite and then some fancier reeded trim, not too wide to trim out the beadboard. Keep that in mind. To make this all come together and really look good, the extra trim made all the difference too. When you look at the finished product, the trim makes it appear to be the real thing. Now you wouldn’t necessarily HAVE to add the trim under the countertop like I did, but I had that issue to deal with, so I needed to do that. You may not.

Another look at the shims under the granite. You’ll see at the end how it all works.

First thing, I cut and pasted my wallpaper pieces. Only 2 of the ends had to be pieced and you can see the small seam to the right. Not a big deal to me, since regular beadboard also has seams. And I did go back and fill in with some spackle which didn’t totally erase it, but made it less noticeable. If I had worked a little bit harder with it, it probably could have totally disappeared, but have I mentioned I’m not a perfectionist? I’m a “if it looks good, then I’m OK with it” kind of girl. So, that’s the first step. Cut, paste and smooth it out. Make sure you smooth all the bubbles out after you get it in place before it dries. That really wasn’t a problem. I just used my hands to smooth it out and it totally lays flat. No bubbles or anything.

So, this is what it looks like on one end after the paper is in place. Not bad at all, huh? Lookin’ good already and it’s not even painted OR trimmed out. Wait til you get to the bottom pics.

I did this on the top cabinet too. Same process. See the good thing about this method is, if you were using real beadboard it would really stick out from the cabinets pretty far and you’d have to get some bigger trim to trim it out and hide the edges. This way, the wallpaper just snuggles right up to the existing molding and then all I had to do was add molding on the right side and bottom to trim it all out. You’ll see in a minute. This doesn’t add a lot of unnecessary bulk to your cabinets, BUT you get the same look.

Again, the small cabinet above the fridge got the same treatment.

Here’s the spackle I used. I used it on the seams and also in the bigger gaps that I had with the old molding and new molding in a couple of spots. Spackle and caulk is your friend, as I told you when I did this project. You can hide a world of sins with caulk. Believe me, I know.

Next up is the molding just under the granite to hide that ugly. I used my miter box and trimmed it to fit each angle and put that molding all the way around the kitchen cabinets under the granite. Used finish nails and wood glue to put it on here. I am NOT a good finish nailer. You will see in the final pics that some of my nail heads are sticking out. They kept bending and I couldn’t get all of them in all the way. Oh well. I really don’t care too much, I just painted over them. A real carpenter would fire me. Again, caulk or wood putty goes in the corner to fill in for painting.

Nailing and gluing. Next you’ll see the reeded wood molding I used on the edges of the beadboard wallpaper. This is small and dainty and I like how it looks and it sort of mimics the beadboard effect. I just added it right on top of the wallpaper and flush with the edge of the cabinet corner. Again, you’ll caulk on both sides if there’s a little gap.

Mitered the corners where they meet. Again, nailed and glued with wood glue to get it on here. I’m not great at measuring, but again, it just takes some patience and perseverance and YOU can do it too.

So, one by one, they all got the trim molding attached. Everything got caulked. Wherever you see any gaps inside or out should be caulked. That just makes the final paint job look so much better if you do this.

Caulked and ready for paint.

Same in the master bath. I did both vanities in there too. After all the caulking and nailing, then it’s time for paint.

I love to use this small weinie roller I got at Lowes for projects like this. Works great and with the small brush, they work together well. I rolled the paint on the wallpaper and used the brush to go back and smooth out around the edges and on the molding. When we moved here over 3 years ago, I discovered our doors throughout the house were primed but never painted, so I had to track down a good trim paint color in gloss to paint all the doors and match our existing trim . I also noticed that the trim color that was already here matched the kitchen and bathroom cabinets to a T, so it made it easy once I got the right match of paint to touch up the kitchen cabinets and all the trimwork. In case anyone is interested, I got Anthem White from Valspar (Lowes) and it’s a perfect match to my trim and cabinets. If I was choosing trim paint myself, I probably would have chosen a creamier white, this one is a little bright white for me, but bright white does look good next to other colors. And I wasn’t about to paint out all my trim just to change the color. This one is just fine thank you.

So, after 2 coats of Anthem White on it all, here they are! I just LOVE how this turned out and would do it again in a minute. I’ve already got plans to add some of this to the master bathroom walls around the whirlpool tub.

Nice huh? Would you ever think that this is not the real thing? I really don’t think that someone coming in our house would ever know the difference even up close. The paper actually has a little texture to it that mimics wood.

Here you can see my messy nails, but that’s OK. It’s not bad if you’re not right on top of it. And see, you can barely see the seam after it’s all painted. I did try to sink the nails, but I’m not all that good with counter-sinking. I may go back and work on those nails a bit better.

Side panel by the dishwasher.

Looks great to me!

From a distance. This is how most people will see them anyway, not up close.

Little cab above the fridge. The great part about painting is that you seal down the edges at the top and sides and it totally looks seamless. I did 2 coats of white high gloss trim paint on it.

Bathroom cabinet

Another angle.

So, that’s it! I hope this will inspire some of you to try this too. It’s a no-brainer for those of you like me who do not have power tools at home and don’t want to get into major remodeling with the real stuff. I think this gives exactly the same look for a fraction of the cost. Not to mention, you don’t have to remove any molding to use this. It goes right up next to what you already have, which to me is ideal even if you wanted to use it in a small bathroom on the walls. No removing the baseboard molding. All you’d have to do is put up the wallpaper, add some chair rail molding on top and that’s it. I’m SOLD on it and I hope you’ll try it too and let me know how it works for you. I know if you have small children that tend to run into cabinets like this, it might be a problem, but for most areas without high energy kids around, you would be fine, I have no doubt.

I can see all sorts of possibilities for using this: Back of a hutch or kitchen cabinets with glass fronts, powder room or small bath on the walls under chair rail, inset in a piece of furniture (drawer or door), on the end of a headboard or footboard with recessed panels, on a ceiling, lots of possibilities. So, what are you waiting for?

I spent a total of $50 on the wallpaper AND trim for this little project. Can you say a LOT of bang for the buck?! And I’m not stopping with this. I’ve got some left and will definitely be putting it to good use.

Coming soon – in order to fix the feed, the DIY Show Off will soon have a new look. Unsuccessful attempts have pushed me to switch to my own domain. Thanks for your patience and sticking with it while I work out the bugs.