The Rustic Modern Accent Wall – One Room Challenge Week 3

How can an accent wall be both rustic and modern?  That is the question we asked ourselves when my husband and I had differing opinions for the walls of the entryway project.  He really wanted to use these rustic wall boards he had seen at Home Depot and I wanted the entryway to have an authentic mid century vibe.  At the end of this post, you tell me if you think we have been able to combine the two styles well.

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Welcome to Week 3 of the One Room Challenge™.

 

 

This year’s Spring One Room Challenge is sponsored by media host Apartment Therapy.

When my husband first mentioned using the Weaber® Rustic Accent Wall Boards available at Home Depot, I wasn’t entirely sold on the idea.  Thankfully we didn’t start this project anytime soon afterwards because it had time to grow on me.

To be honest, what finally convinced me was the images on the side of the boxes. 

Each box style has an image of the accent wall with a mid century modern chair in front of it. 

Of course I adored the look and knew we could make it work in the entryway of our home. 

Anytime you can find a compromise to seamlessly blend two different ideas on your home style and décor is always a win win situation.

 

 

Last week, for Week 2 of the One Room Challenge, where this room started out with heavy wall vinyl coverings and yellow paint.  I also shared how my husband spent a lot of time and effort on removing the old vinyl wallpaper and applying layer after layer of skim coat to get the walls of the entryway as smooth as possible.  It was tedious and messy but worth it in the end.

The obvious next step would be to paint the other 3 walls before installing the rustic accent wall on the pocket door wall.

However, I am struggling with the paint choices for the walls and the pocket doors. 

I know I wanted a nice neutral gray tone for the walls and a deep moody navy for the doors.  There are a lot of paint choices for both.

There are no plans to paint these pocket doors again once they are installed so I want to love it the first time.

 

 

 

This entryway also gets a lot of sunlight and I really wanted to see the effect the rustic wood accent wall would have on the choice of colors for the other three walls before committing to a paint color.

So we temporarily skipped the paint step and went straight to installing the rustic wall accent boards.

 

We purchased the boxes of weathered accent boards at Home Depot but there are similar ones available on Amazon as well.

 

 

 

Each box of the Weaber® Accent Wall Boards covers about 10.5 square foot of space. 

After looking through every available style in the store, we finally selected the Weathered style that has a variety of different colored boards.  We purchased seven boxes total, hoping that we would have more than enough boards and would not need all seven boxes.

But first, a base coat of dark paint was needed.

 

 

Since the boards for our rustic accent wall included deep browns, and grays, and even black stained boards, the base coat for the wall needed to be dark to hide the cracks between each board.  I purchased a quart of flat wall paint in the Satin Black color from Behr.  It provided a rich deep color for the accent wall behind the rustic wall boards.

 

Installing the weathered wall boards.

All of the boards are 48 inches in length and 3.8 inches wide.  So figured we had two options for the pattern.

We could install the boards in a stacked a pattern, or cut them down to different sizes and install them on the wall in a staggered subway pattern.  Based on the size of the doors and the small amount of space above them, we completely nixed the idea of a vertical pattern with so many short board cuts.

In the end, we combined a staggered subway pattern with a stacked pattern for a modern look.

Here is how it went.

 

 

At the bottom of each wall beside the pocket doors, a solid length board was installed above the original baseboard trim. 

 

 

 

The next 3 rows were installed in the staggered subway pattern with different colored cut boards and in various lengths.  Then another long length board was installed, and then another 3 rows installed in the staggered subway pattern.

 

 

 

This pattern was repeated up both small walls that then transitioned to longer staggered subway boards along the top of the doors.

It made for a great modern look for the rustic wall boards.  The longer boards installed between the three rows of smaller staggered cut boards gave the transition at the top with all longer length boards a more cohesive look.  

 

 

Each board was installed with a combination of liquid nails and small brad nails with a nail gun.  These boards are not coming off that wall anytime soon.  As the very first board was installed, we were committed.

Good thing we really like how it turned out.  We only used 6 boxes.  

 

 

Picking out the paint for the other walls and the new pocket doors has been a thoughtful challenge.

Afterwards, I taped several paint swatches on the blank walls, and on the accent boards that were in gray and navy colors.

I walked around them for days at different times to see how the window lights played off the color combinations with the rustic accent boards. 

Slowly I moved them back and forth or just eliminated them one by one until I found the colors I thought worked well with both the multicolored rustic boards and the blank walls.

 

But that is a story for next week (you can see a bit of a sneak peak in this photo though).

I hope you visit again next week to see the final paint color choices on the wall and the vintage light fixture from 1960 that we will be installing.

 

Hugs,

 

Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”