How To Create A Budget Friendly Slat Wall

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Creating a slat wall is very simple with a HUGE impact!! I thought it would look great in our master bedroom behind our bed. I love having a feature wall. 

At the Stonybrook House, we created a feature wall in that master bedroom as well.
How To Build A Shiplap Feature Wall

We loved that feature wall too! But we wanted to do something different here at the little brick house.

I wanted to try something a little more daring for me... Painting the feature wall black. I wasn't a 100% sure on the black wall, but I figured it was only paint. If I didn't like it, I could easily paint over it. I picked up some cheap black paint and went for it. I thought, I'll live with it for a week and see how it goes. Well, after 1 hour, it was a solid YES!

We decided not to slat the entire width of the wall. I wanted to hang the mirrors and the pendant lights and felt if we did the entire space it would be too busy. So, we created a frame for the slatted area with 1x2's.

Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself... the easy part is installing the slat wall. In order to make this budget friendly, there's some work involved.

Let's do some math...1x2x8 common pine board runs about $4.50 each and if you need 50 pieces (I used 48 slats) that's going to be over $200!! No, that is not in the budget. We kinda cheated too, but you'd never know it... It may appear that the slats run all the way to the floor, but they don't. The slats were only 4 feet long! The headboard is above that and gives the illusion that they run to the floor. So, you could use 1x2s and cut them in half if you didn't need them to run the full 8ft long. That would be around $100.

Here's the other way we saved some $$. We didn't use 1x2's. We purchased a sheet of sanded plywood. Now the costs of wood in the last couple of years as been up and down. We purchased it when it was about $65 for a sanded 4x8 sheet of plywood.

Then we ripped the plywood sheet into 1 inch pieces on the 4ft. side.

Omg! There was sooo much sawdust! Then I got the lovely job of sanding and staining all the pieces.

I tested a few colors. I didn't care for the gray against the black wall so we went with the warmer wood color. I almost always use Minwax Wood Conditioner. It makes the the wood accept stain more evenly. Then I applied Minwax Golden Oak stain.

Now comes the fun part!!

First the 1x2 frame across the top.

Find the center and nail in place. I had just purchased a Ryobi pin nailer and this was a game changer! I didn't want to fill all the holes in this slat wall! Because most of the slats were not going to be nailed into a stud, it was going to require a few more nails than usual.

The pin nailer is so tiny that it barely shows and it doesn't make a deep hole in the wood. I didn't have to fill one hole. These slats are super lightweight, so I wasn't worried about them not holding. Plus if I ever change my mind and want to take it down it isn't going to tear up the wall.

Of course, you can use a regular nail gun, you'll just have to fill the holes with stainable wood filler.

Then you lay the next slat right next to it, then another one. Nail in the second one, and move the middle one over. You're basically using the slat as spacer for the slat wall.

It worked out perfect and we added the 1x2 on each side and the bottom to frame it out.

Lastly, we added another 1x2 on either side of the mirrors. The bed can't really be centered on the wall, so by framing out the black and wood slatted area it looks centered. I couldn't be happier! It came out great!

Thanks for reading!
Blessings,
Lori