Easy herringbone accent wall in a day(ish)

Lately life has been known to throw a few curveballs making DIY a bit challenging.

That’s why when I decided that our primary bedroom needed a little pizzazz, I wanted an accent wall design that would take me no more than a day.

The sketch mock up of the design for the easy herringbone accent wall.

In full transparency, this project actually took a couple days, but in a couple hour increments because I’m a super poor planner.

Who decides to do a DIY project in the middle of one of our busiest weeks… this girl.

But trust me, if we scooped all the time together, it would have only taken me a day to complete and I truly believe you can too.

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The wood accent wall design process

I love a good accent wall and have been eyeing the wall behind our bed.

I even considered recreating my most favorite accent wood wall from our last primary bedroom.

Our last primary bedroom with our Woodgrain wood accent wall.

For this design I wanted simple, subtle, and bold.

Of course I took a trip through my Pinterest boards and saw a common design I was drawn to, herringbone.

Herringbone accent wall materials

I typically use primed MDF from Woodgrain to do many of my accent walls.

Our home office with Woodgrain MDF boards

When we did the accent wall in our daughter’s room I loved using lattice because it was lightweight and not as thick as a regular board.

Kennedy’s diamond accent wall was our first quarantine project.

Thankfully I found 2 1/4 inch wide lattice and it was the perfect size for this project.

Herringbone accent wall the process

Even though our home is a new build, the walls are still not 100% straight.

To give the design some structure, I added framing pieces in both corners.

By doing this I didn’t have to cut my cross pieces at different lengths and the wonky part would be on the outside of the framing board.

After the two side lattice pieces were installed, I measured between them to find the center part of the wall.

This is where I added another lattice board and I measured between the center and side boards to add another vertical board for a total of 5 vertical lattice boards.

Setting the vertical boards allowed me to set the spacing for the herringbone wall design.

I settled on a 30 degree angle for the cross pieces, the bigger the angle the deeper the angle.

Checking the angle of the cross pieces for the herringbone wall.

Because I wanted to keep the design larger, I spaced the boards 27 inches apart.

To get the design even, and because I was working by myself, painters tape was my friend to hold everything so I could see it before I nailed everything to the wall.

Painters tape acts as an extra set of hands during installation.

No matter how much you measure, there’s still a visual aspect that’s the most important in my opinion.

What I’m about to tell you next is a preference about how to attach the boards to the wall.

What’s a project without a little controversy?

This next part I’m about to tell you is a personal preference and I’m sure there are people who may disagree.

I only attached the boards using brad nails with my most favorite Ryobi brad nail gun using 18 gauge nails and I shoot the nails in at an angle.

Using a Ryobi Brad Nailer to secure the lattice boards to the wall.

I refuse to use liquid nails and I also don’t caulk around all the boards.

The reason why, drywall repair.

If you’ve ever taken anything off a wall that someone has used liquid nails to adhere the product to the wall, it will destroy your walls and you’ll have a lot of drywall repair on your hands.

I would rather just patch a bunch of tiny holes than have to repair an entire wall of drywall damage.

But again that’s personal preference.

Easy herringbone wall done and ready for paint.

Once all the boards were up, I wood filled all the nail holes and caulked the side pieces that met up with the wall since the walls aren’t perfectly straight.