I recently have been working on creating my son’s big boy room! We were ready to move him out of his nursery and into a bigger room that he could grow into. I had asked my Instagram followers if I should do board and batten, a chair rail, or beadboard and board and batten won!
I thought it would be really fun to give his room a vintage Americana theme so I PAINSTAKINGLY painted blue and white stripes around his room on the upper half of the wall and did board and batten on the bottom half.
The problem was that we had existing baseboards in the room that had a very thin top, and if we didn’t do anything to them, we would have an overhang from the vertical board pieces of the board and batten. It’s a similar problem for a piece of moulding we have under the window in my toddler’s room.
Board and Batten Hack: How to Do Board and Batten Without Removing Baseboards
I thought the only way around this would be to rip out our existing baseboards and replace with thicker ones, until I saw a hack somewhere that recommended using cove moulding. You flip the cove moulding so that a narrow end lines up with the top of your thin baseboard and the the vertical pieces of board and batten will sit on top:
This video I made kind of shows the process better as well!:
Not only was this a cheaper alternative to ripping out the baseboards and replacing them (I think I paid $15 for enough cove moulding to go around the room and under the window), but it was easier too!
I used these miter shears (under $20) from Amazon to cut the pieces and this specific cove moulding from Lowe’s (under $6 per 8 feet). The cove moulding is made of polystyrene which is like a foam, so it is very easy to cut with the miter shears. Of course you could get wood cove moulding and cut it with a table saw, but this was easier and cheaper!
Once I cut the pieces at the angles I needed and to the length, I just nailed them to the wall. And once I got the vertical and horizontal pieces of the board and batten added, I caulked all of the seams of the cove moulding and to the board and batten pieces to make it look more seamless! Once that dried I was able to pain and TA-DA!! One less step in doing board and batten!
P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you may enjoy my post about how to get the cleanest paint lines when painting stripes in a room!
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Looks really great