Planking, Priming & Painting

I started planking one wall in the bathroom a couple of weeks ago. It was the quickest one, with long boards, no outlets, switches, lights, windows, etc. Things were moving fast... until I had to start using the jig saw. Seems easy enough, but my blade kept falling out every 15 seconds or so.

 As if that wasn't annoying enough, I ran out of plywood with 4 boards left. I tried to stretch it so that I would have seems behind the vanity (where they wouldn't be seen), but I simply didn't have enough wood. After a quick trip to Home Depot (because it's closer than Lowes), I was back in business... sort of. I had to get a birch plywood instead of pine, and the employee there cut these planks at 6 1/4" instead of 6".  Hmph...

I pushed on, and while it's noticeable, I'm hoping once the mirror and cap molding are up it will still look okay. 

Just to recap, I used the nickle trick to space out the boards, as shown here and here, with a 4' level to guide me and make sure I stayed on track. This project goes really fast if you have a nail gun. They're really fun to use -- you should try it!

Since air compressors aren't the quietest tools, I had to wait until my husband could take the boys somewhere for a few hours a few times so that I didn't wake them up during nap. The first day I was so giddy to start planking that I said to my husband, "If I just put the air compressor in the laundry room while it fills up, it won't wake anyone up!" He just rolled his eyes, and said "You would have killed me if I did that!" when it woke the little guy up... oops!  Sooo it took me a while longer, but the planks are all in place.

Some tips I have if you're planning to plank some walls would be:
 - prime your walls beneath - a few coats! This ensures you won't see any of the previous wall color between the planks.
- when cutting around outlets and switches, be sure to leave access to the screws to remove said outlet/switch. I'm no electrician, but I did change my first switch and outlet while planking (another proud moment! You better believe I tested the wires about 23,958,930 times before touching them! Especially since I was home alone.). I had originally planked over the screws to the switch, which means I had to remove that plank -- what a pain! But I learned to cut BIG holes around these and the wires for the sconces.
- use a 4' level to make sure all of your planks are level.
Other than that, it's pretty straight forward.

Then came the sanding, priming, priming, priming, and painting, painting, painting! Yup, three coats of each! I'm going for a little more of a rustic look if you remember this post, so I didn't quite sand the planks to be perfectly smooth.

I hope you enjoy the sneak peak of my DIY vanity in place with a couple of perfect baskets I found at Meijer of all places, and for less than $20 a piece! They'll be getting a little makeover soon, too.

Next up:
- base boards, cap molding & quarter round in the corners.
- spruce up the baskets a bit
- makeover the existing sconces (since we get a lot of compliments on them)
- quartz counter top (3-4 weeks, people... whoa)
- accessorize

I hooked up the toilet this morning, and I can't tell you how excited M was to use it when he got home from preschool! It's the little things....

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