Board and Batten Entry Way

Since we moved in, the space behind our front door has been a problem area.  We are a no-shoes house, so there is a constant pile of shoes behind the door.  We threw down some ugly door mats that the previous owner left behind and this is what we have...

A big mess....constantly.  And yes most, of those shoes are mine.  We stuck the table there to see if it and it's matching partner would make a good bench after some revamping.

The other side of the door isn't much better.  This is a typical day.  Purse and computer bag get dropped by the front door, shoes get kicked off on the other side....

Gym bag gets tossed on the table.... Just terrible.  Not exactly the welcome I want for our home.

When a friend made-over their laundry area with board and batten, I went Pinterest-ing to find some more entry-way specific inspiration.

I loved this from Thrifty Decor Chick

And this one also from Thrifty Decor Chick

I read a lot of blog posts and Ana White had some helpful tips.

So we got to work.  First I drew a crazy sketch to start planning how much wood we would need.

We decided on using primed MDF.  It was a little thiner than primed wood and from what I researched we hoped it would be more straight than wood might be.  I was a little thrown off by the fact that a 1" x 4"is not actually those dimensions, but slightly less.  You can see in my new drawing below that the 4" wide boards were actually 3.5" which meant I needed some new calculations. (What?!?! How much sense does that make? Obviously I am never the one who buys wood for projects around our house, since I just figured this out.) 

After some changes to my first calculations, I came up with a new drawing and a cut list for my husband so he could get started on this while I was at work. 

We started off using liquid nails to adhere the boards to the wall, but that top piece wasn't laying flat because *surprise, surprise* our wall is very uneven.  So you can see some of the boards have a few screws holding them up. Frog Tape helped keep things in place and evenly spaced as we went.

I spent a good amount of time caulking where the boards joined together and along every edge against the wall.  The unevenness of the wall made this a much longer of a step than I anticipated but I kind enjoyed doing it.  Except that I had a very difficult time getting the board to look seamless where they met each other.  So I did the best I could then started painting with Satin white paint we had from painting trim around the house.

After I got it all painted I wasn't happy with how the seams looked so we took the sander to it to smooth things out better.

A little more painting, adding hooks, art and a basket for shoes (for the time being) and it was finally done!

I love how it makes the area more of a defined space and not just a huge empty wall with a dirty pile of shoes.

Watercolor of Boston makes it feel nice and welcoming.

We picked up these hooks at Home Depot for about $5 a piece.

We are all happy to have a place to hang our things.

Project breakdown:
MDF: ~ $27 (with only about 2 feet of board left over)
Hooks: ~ $15
Caulk: ~ $5
Liquid Nails: ~ $3.50
Paint, screws, sander: already owned

Total: ~$50

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