Board and Batten

I'm excited to share that my days of dreaming about and lusting after board and batten have finally paid off. We have installed some in our new home! The entryway from the garage is somewhat tight. There are two closets and two hallways. One hallway goes straight into the kitchen and the other to the laundry room. We are using one of the closets as a makeshift pantry (one of the few desired features our new home is lacking) and the other for coats and shoe storage.

Given that we have young children, I really wanted a place for hooks so they can hang up their jackets and bags without assistance. A 3M hook sufficed for a little while, but that wasn't really the look I was going for so when pinterest was kind enough to introduce me to the idea of installing board and batten with hooks I had to oblige.

We aren't finished with it yet. We still have to do some additional sanding (it's amazing how some imperfections really pop after a coat of white paint), repaint it a time or two, install the hooks, and decide on a paint color for the wall above, but just seeing board and batten installed in my home, and knowing that we did it ourselves is very exciting. Trust me, I'm the girl who would've paid someone to do this just a couple years ago. We actually got an estimate to have it installed in the dining room of our old house and couldn't believe it when the quote came back for $4,000! Needless to say, our walls stayed bare.

So here they are, the before and almost after pics: