Board and Batten in the Stairwell

I have put off painting the stairwell for a long time… a long, long time. It was still the contractor’s original ugly FLAT off white paint. I did paint and accent wall about 2 years ago, in hopes to take attention away from all the smudges and little hand prints all the way down the stairs… It worked for a while, but the number of hand prints have since increased, and become larger, and the assortments of medium increased, it had a nice array of crayon marks, shoe scuffs, and I kid you not, I found a booger cemented to the wall… Yeah, it was time to repaint to a more family friendly WASHABLE finish…

So let the whirl wind renovations begin! I knew I wanted to lighted the area, but I definitely did not want to paint it all white. So I took my Family Room as inspiration and decided to add board and batten to the stair well.

It would allow me to paint the bottom in a nice high-gloss, very washable paint, but it would still allow for some color above the chair rail.

Supplies Used –

Nail Hole Filler
Sand Paper
1 3/4″ nails
Nail Gun
1×4″ Boards
1×3″ Boards
Paint-able Caulk (lots and lots of it.)

Tools Suggested-

Nail Gun
Air Compressor
Level

Remove Handrail
Fill holes
Sand Down Nail Filler

SIDE NOTE: The baseboards on the stair case were deep enough that the batten matched up nicely. However, on the landing there was a lower profile baseboards. I ended up removing that baseboard and replacing it with 1×4″ boards.

Determine height of chair rail. Mine measure 34″ from the top of the baseboard to the top of the chair rail. I used a primed 1×4″ finger board for my top board.
Mark placement of board
Install 1×4″ board ( I used 1 3/4″ nails and a nail gun)
If you are doing the entire stairwell, continue the process up the stairs.

Next install the batten boards (the vertical boards). I used 1×3″ primed finger board.

Do Math ( I hate this part, but you will need to figure out the angle of your slope etc..)
Mark Board Placement (Mine are placed approximately 21″ apart, center to center.)
Cut Boards
Install ( Again, I used 1 3/4″ nails, and a nail gun)
Continue the process up the stairs

Prep for Paint :

Fill all nail holes
Sand Down filler
Caulk all the edges. ( This is IMPORTANT, it will make it look very finished!)
I then painted all my edges, then painted the interior
After the “Board and Batten” was painted, I proceed to paint the wall above the rail. I used “Silver Birch “by Glidden.