grid panelling diy

there was really nothing wrong with my bonus/family room.  however, for the past 5 years i've had the idea of grid panelling, and wanting to do it somewhere.  i just had never got around to doing it, or more appropriately.....had never got around to convincing my husband to do it with me!

but, last week, he had a couple of days off....i threw the idea out there, and he actually said, 'yeah, ok'........say what?!  it was an easy sell!  so a day and a half later, it was done and i/we couldn't be happier!!

here's a pic of my family room before the panelling:

and now......

i'm seriously sooooo happy with it!

our house is about 11 years old, so certainly not old enough to have any architectural interest.  we thought this was a great way to add a little visual somethin' - somethin'!

so how did we do it you ask? 

well, let me tell you....

ripped off the baseboards, didn't bother to paint the wall first....

bought 2 pieces of mdf and had The Home Depot cut it into 6 inch strips

we did the math before we left to buy the mdf.  figured out the size of the squares we wanted.  we made our squares 24 inches by 27 1/2 inches.  the wall didn't allow for 'perfect' squares, but i think it's close enough to fool the eye

filled the seams and nail holes with drywall mud.  used dap to caulk the inside of each square so no big gaps were showing....

because we had dark grey before, the white didn't cover well......so 3 thick coats later, we felt it finally looked 'covered'

ta-daa....

i think it's clean, bright and classic....

this project was inexpensive!  2 sheets of mdf, costing about $60, a can of paint, and a little wood filler/dap.  we do have a saw and air nailer that made the job much easier!

fyi, i just use behr's semi gloss, interior, ultra pure white, right off the shelf.

we also framed out the top and sides with quarter round, b/c our walls aren't perfectly straight....and there were wierd gaps.....so an easy fix.

all in all, it was easy.....but i won't lie, it's not the fastest project....it's a little time consuming!

however, well worth it, i think!