Hi everyone!! So for those who follow me on Instagram, PrettyToTheT_Home, know that I recently added an accent wall to my living-room. My wall consists of hard board panels, decorative trim, and paint. I put a couple days worth of work into this wall, but feel that it was all worth it; I love the way it came out!

Tools I used

• Compressor
• Air Gun
• Table Saw
• Miter Saw
• Measuring Tape
• Pencil
• Leveler
• Plastic/Tarp
• Painter’s Tape
• Paint Roller
• Paint Gun
• Caulking Gun

Materials I purchased ALL from Home Depot

• 3 X Hardboard Tempered Panels (4’X8′) $8.28
• 14 X House of Fara Basswood Panel Moulding 3/8in. X 1-1/4in. X 8ft. $6.85
• A can of paint (I used semi gloss Chic Gray) (Depends on the paint grade you choose, but roughly $30.00-$40.00)
• 2 X Loctite Power Grab $4.98
• 3-4 X DAP Alex Flex Premium Molding & Trim Sealant $4.45
• Painter’s Tape $6.20

Totaling=$180.25

I know the list of tools seems like a long one, but if you have done any home project prior to this, these are tools that you probably already have. I started off by prepping the wall that I wanted to give a face lift to. I took down curtains, pictures, nails, and wiped down the wall. I have textured walls throughout my house, and wanted a nice clean, smooth finished look when done. In order to achieve this look, I had to line my walls with the Hardboard Panels. With the air gun, I nailed the panels into my wall. Now, this is by personal preference, I know that most people just scribble some glue between their walls and the hardboard panels, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do this, so I nailed my boards to the wall with an air gun. The heads to the nails are large enough to hold the boards to the wall, but small enough to hammer into the wall and putty up later on down the road if I ever change my mind and want to take this wall down. The heads to the nails are also so small that I didn’t have to worry about a bunch of nail heads protruding through the hardboard creating any eyesores. What I did was nail along the edges, and once I figured out where I wanted my trim, I nailed several more nails where I planned on gluing the trim. By doing it this way, the trim hid any nail holes after gluing the trim up.

Now to prepping the area to paint!! I definitely did not want paint on my new shutters, or really anywhere else for that matter, so I taped what I could off. I perfectly covered my shutters with plastic, used painters builders paper to cover up the ceiling and two surrounding walls, and used a drop cloth for the floor. Now that I am ready to throw some primer on this bad boy, I grabbed a paint roller and started priming away.

Still with me??……

Next, I measured the right and left space to the center window. Because I have a huge, off-centered window, this made things a little more challenging, but still doable. At this point, I only focused on the larger side of the window. From the farthest end of the wall to the window, I took those measurements and figured out how big I wanted my middle square to be. Prior to starting this project, I purchased a picture that I had wanted to hang on this wall; I kept this picture in mind when figuring out my square sizes. After finding out how big I wanted this square, I divided what was left into two and came up with the measurements to the two thinner squares that hugged my larger one. Once I had an idea of where and how big I wanted my squares to be, I took a long leveler and started drawing lines.

{Please keep in mind, the sizes of your squares are all by personal preference!}

Now that I have the larger area of this wall mathematically figured out for my squares, I began to work towards the other side of the window. I wanted my wall to look as proportioned as possible so I kept my focus on the largest square. I tried my best to make the two bigger squares under the window to be around the same width of the square I already made in the larger area, (the right side of the window) keeping in mind that I wanted a smaller square separating the two bigger squares. Once I made it over to the small area on the other side of the window, I was left with a thin slice of the wall for thin rectangular squares. I will definitely say that the mathematical aspect to this project was by far the most time consuming part of it all.

Now that I have a million penciled lines all over this wall from guessing and assuming where my squares would look best proportioned, I needed a clearer visual on where I was going to glue my trim down to, therefore, I used painters tape!

Take a look at the right side of this window.

It’s all a bit confusing, I am sorry; I am trying to do my best at explaining this. The right side of that ^ window is where I began with my squares. I started off with how big I wanted my larger middle square on this side of the window.

Square by square, I used a pencil and made a more definably square by tracing the inside of the tape. Square by square, I took down the tape and with a leveler I began to glue my trim down. Be careful that the glue doesn’t goop out from under the trim; the glue will harden up and cause defects on your wall when painting. At the ends of the trim, I did throw in a nail to keep the trim from sliding and moving around. I didn’t want to put to many nails into the trim because I didn’t want to worry to much about filling in holes and sanding down any excess putty.

As for cutting the trim, this can get a bit confusing and costly if you mess up….. If you are using decorative trim, you will more than likely lose several inches per trim strip. You want your angles to match up perfectly by making your cuts at a 45 degree angle, (45+45=90 degrees.) If you are flip flopping the trim on the Miter Saw making your cuts, KEEP IN MIND that the grooves of the of trim need to match up. If you don’t flip flop the trim and cut a, wasted triangular shaped piece of in between cuts, your angles will not match up.

Now that I have my wall up the way that I desire it to be, I started filling in any holes and caulking the edges of the trim. Before the caulking completely dried up, I used a damp rag to wipe down any excess.

Yay…..Almost done! At this final point, I took my painter’s gun and started spraying the color I chose to paint this wall, Chic Gray…….and VOILA!!!

After taking all of the plastic and painters paper down, my finished product looks beautiful!!!

Before Picture……