How to Create an Accent Wall

The accenting is here! And I am very excited about this wall transformation that in turn, transformed the entire room! It also felt really cool figuring most of this one out on my own outside of a few heavy lifting parts and came out pretty comparable to a lot of professional accent walls. And the best part… it was affordable!

So let’s dive in!

STEP 1: Choosing a Pattern

The first thing was figuring out the overall look. While keeping the design strictly vertical and horizontal would have been effective and much simpler to create, I really wanted to make something more unique that involved different angles & shapes despite the extra material, measuring, and overall added time.

Sketching out the pattern on paper, I made sure to design around the wall’s dimensions.

STEP 2: Layout & Measurements

I used painter's tape to lay out the pattern on the wall working around the windows, baseboards, and any other features that were on the wall being accented. Once it looked good, I found measuring from the longest points (or sides) of each angle as close as I could get along the tape, really helped in getting the cuts close to EXACTLY what I needed. This was probably the most time-consuming part of the project but made putting up the wood strips waaayyyy easier & precise. There ended up being a lot fewer gaps & touch-ups the I thought there would be!

STEP 3: Getting the Materials List of Materials:

• Wood strips w/ the thickness of your choice

• Wood Construction Glue (optional)

• Nails & Hammer

• Level

• Measuring Tape

• Paint of your choice

• Roller & Paintbrush for details

Though there were other tools I used to do this project (miter saw, wood filler, painters tape, and if you have a nail gun it is perfect for this project), you don’t need them to make an awesome accent wall, just makes things usually easier & faster.

SET 4: Cut & Assemble

Using the measurements to cut each piece was pretty simple. I tag-teamed with my Husband, Michael, where he ended up doing most of the cutting while I gave him the angles and checked each section as we went. Next, I put glue along the back sides of each strip, secured the piece to the wall by applying pressure, and used nails sparingly for extra security & helped set the glue flush against the wall.

Helpful Tip: Make sure you apply the glue to the correct side of each strip. It is super easy to lose track gluing the wrong side and it is not fun trying to remove strong glues.

After all of the strips are in place, I made sure the nails were flush (or deeper) than the wood to smear over with wood filler to make a smooth clean surface for the paint.

STEP 5: Paint Time

You can easily use a paint roller for most of this. The only areas I didn’t was around the borders mainly because I didn’t want to worry about touch-ups at the end as much as possible. You can do this using a paintbrush instead if you’d like some texture on your wall, or a sprayer if you want it really smooth.

BOOM! The accent wall is complete!

I love it so much and is such an affordable way (roughy $100-$200 range) to add a little extra to any room, and really bumps the style of your space. Full transformation on Instagram!