P V C Accent Wall

Renovations

Oct 25

No Tools DIY Accent Wall

Are you wanting a wood trim accent wall but don’t have any tools? I am going to show you how you can install a beautiful accent wall without a saw or nail gun!

For this accent wall I used a moulding called PVC Lattice Moulding. This should be sold at your big box stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s. It will be located in the trim and moulding section where you will find your baseboards and other trim. My store sold it in several widths but all of them were 8ft long. If your ceilings are taller than 8ft, you may want to consider adjoining multiple pieces or using another material that is sold in longer pieces. I really like this PVC moulding because it is very easy to work with and is also very forgiving on the wall if your walls have a thicker texture or are not perfectly flat and straight.

Step 1: Determine Your Spacing

The first step is to determine where you will place your boards on the wall. If you are doing an evenly spaced vertical pattern, then I recommend checking out my blog post How to Calculate Board & Batten for an easy way to calculate your spacing between boards.

Step 2: Measure and Cut

Next you will want to measure the wall where your boards will go and cut your boards to that measurement. One of my favorite things about this moulding is that it can be cut without a saw. There is a very affordable tool called Miter Shears that you use to cut PVC moulding. They are like a heavy duty pair of scissors.

Step 3: Attach to Walls

Now there are three different ways to attach this moulding to your walls. If you own a nail gun, I would recommend using it to attach your boards to the wall and a level to ensure your board is straight on the wall. If you do not own a nail gun, there are two options to attach the boards to the wall without nails.

The first option is using a construction adhesive. You would apply this to the back of your piece of moulding, get it in place on the wall and use blue painters tape to hold the moulding in place on the wall until the adhesive dries. Keep in mind, construction adhesive is permanent and if you ever decide to pull the moulding off the wall, the adhesive will pull pieces of the drywall or sheetrock off with it.

The second option if you don’t own a nail gun is to use heavy duty double sided mounting tape. You would attach it to the back of your moulding and press the moulding firmly against the wall to adhere it.

Step 4: Finishing Details

If you used the construction adhesive I would wait a full 24hrs before painting or messing with the moulding. If you use the mounting tape, I would wait 1-2hrs to ensure the tape adheres well to the wall. The rest of the finishing details are optional and up to you. Normally I would always caulk the edges of the moulding where it touches the wall but since I used my nail gun, my boards were tight against the wall and I decided caulking wasn’t necessary. Next, I decided to prime my boards to ensure my wall paint would adhere to them. You can prime them before or after installing them. My go-to primer is Zinsser primer. Once the primer was dry, I painted my walls with normal interior paint.