DIY Shiplap

If you've ever wanted to install some shiplap in the house then you should find a wall and go for it. I really liked the look of shiplap, but buying the real stuff is super expensive!

I don't think shiplap actually has anything to do with boatbuilding, but it could be used as a way to plank a boat. Clinker & lapstrake are more popular now. But imagine the exterior siding of a house, where rainwater has to roll down without getting back through the siding to the back of the exterior wall. It's just a rabbet on both long edges of a board. For exterior use, when the rabbet faces up and out, one board hooks under the rabbet of the board above it. Water hits the wall, and the worst it can do is get into the rabbet groove between the boards, but can't get back behind the siding.

For interior use it just creates a cool look with gaps between the boards. We can achieve this look in a variety of ways. I have a wall in a bathroom I'm currently remodeling that I decided to make into a shiplap accent wall. The first option is to buy some shiplap. But at $7.48 per board that was a no for me. In with the molding at Lowe's was a box of 4' stuff that said it covered 10sqft of wall space for $25, but it would take about 6 boxes of the stuff to cover my wall. Both are very good options if you want to pay for it. You could also buy a shitload of 1x6 pine boards and cut the rabbets in on the router, but that's a ton of work and still really expensive. I chose the cheap DIY shiplap method.

My wall is only 7'3" high and 8' long, but there is a roofline slant cut into it. So less than 2' of the wall is at full height. So you don't have to be a math major to know that 2 sheets of plywood is going to be enough to cover that wall. I had to rip out all of the existing drywall, there was a weird popout for part of the wall that I never could figure out why it was there. Turns out, the wide part was hiding a vent pipe. The end of the wall goes inside of a closet, and I wanted to  make the tiny bathroom feel bigger by putting these lines all the way into the closet space.

The wall behind that sink, with the weird kickout. It's not flat.

This closet had face framing that I had already ripped off.

If you already have a flat wall and don't want to rip out the existing drywall, you can get 1/4" thick plywood, or less. Rip it into strips 5 7/8" wide, hang it on the wall using a paint stirrer, or nickels, or something else consistent as spacers. Then paint the whole thing and it will look like real shiplap. I didn't have that, so I had to make thicker shiplap.

I started with two sheets (4' x 8') of 19/32" plywood. This is the first size over half an inch that was available to me at Home Depot. side note: HD has a much better plywood supply selection than Lowe's carries, but I genuinely prefer Lowe's for everything else. I probably could have used half inch, it's an interior wall, but I thought this would be more sturdy. And since I had to hang some major shelves inside of the closet I went for the extra thickness.

Step 1 is to cut the plywood into strips. Regular 1x6 pine boards are actually 5.75" wide. Add a rabbet on there and they will net a more narrow strip than that. Plywood is 48" wide. To account for the kerf of the sawblade you want to rip the strips at 5 7/8" wide to the edge of the sawblade. I messed up a few attempts at this before finding a good way to do it. My table saw isn't big enough to slide whole sheets of plywood across, so I had to find a better way.

In the end, the best way was to use an 8' long board leftover from another project as a guide. I used spring clamps to hold the board onto the plywood. Measure up from the inside edge of the sawblade on a circular saw to the edge of the bed and add that number to the 5 7/8" I need to end up with. For my skillsaw, that ended up being 9 5/8". For one of my cordless saws, the bed was exactly 4" offset, so I got great smooth cuts from a 9 7/8" clamp distance. No need to draw or chalk a line covering the exact spread, trust the guide. You get the same effect from a track saw. I measure 9 5/8" up from the edge of the plywood on each side, clamp the board down there with spring clamps, then run my saw across. There is a fairly new blade on there, but I didn't have any problems with chipouts or anything. Once the plywood got down to a manageable size, I could run it through the table saw.

After getting all of the strips cut to width, I tried to cut the rabbet out on the table saw. This almost kind of worked. Turns out I had to cut every board to length, and the better approach is to measure length, then cut the rabbet on the router. 

My stack of shiplap. That board on top had a bad cut, but only on one chunk of it.

Cutting rabbets on the table saw makes a bunch of sawdust

I had to furr out the studs to make the wall plumb. Turns out, my version of plumb was still pretty bowed, but I made it work. Really I should have just reframed by sistering 2x6's onto the existing studs, but that would have been too easy. I had scrap 2x4's to rip up. I also should have ripped down that drywall from the ceiling that was inside of the closet.

Getting the wall prepped

Now I had to cut my first board to match a slanted ceiling exactly so it was very difficult. On a square wall, you just nail on your first board, cut to length when you need to, and install from top to bottom. Just keep running one row below the next, and use the length left over from your cut to length from the last row to start the new row. That guarantees your vertical spacers will never line up. Since my wall was only 94" long, I never had any vertical spacers. Just cut out for the slope.

Important! After you cut each piece of shiplap, be sure to sand every surface. I went with a 120 grit on an orbital sander until the sander broke, then had some 80 grit on a belt sander. Sand the face and the edges! This is very important. The finished product will not allow you to sand the edges in bulk after installation is complete. Sand it before you install.

My first piece of shiplap is installed!

I used the scrap from that angle cut to draw the angles for all of the other boards that had to butt up to the ceiling. Work your way down one row at a time.

Two boards, one template for that angle. I did end up getting the top board to stay flush.

I added some extra support for the shelves on this side, you'll see why later.

This DIY shiplap is very forgiving when you have to work around other obstacles. I had to do some other electrical work. We are adding a medicine cabinet, and switched from one light above the sink/mirror that was there before to a teardrop light on each side of the medicine cabinet. Also had to cut around for an outlet.

cutout for the medicine cabinet and electrical for the light fixtures

cutout around the plumbing too

Getting there! One shelf support is up

Most of the finished wall with both shelf supports

I marked the drywall for where the shelf supports should be

I had to cut around the outlet too

Funny thing, the plumbing didn't stick out far enough to hold up to a flush mount so I just left a huge hole there. We're not putting the pedestal sink back anyway, going with a cabinet & vanity sink. So this isn't a huge deal, but does deserve some explanation.

So I made my own shiplap for $60 worth of plywood, and had enough leftover to cover that closet ceiling anyway. We made the closet bigger, 5' wide total. When we run the flooring and walls consistently into an open closet instead of the face framed stuff that was in the tiny closet before, it really made the bathroom open up. This bathroom is only 6' x 8' of floor space, with a shower & closet.

again working from top to bottom. Notice that massive gap in the drywall?

This ceiling has issues, but this scrap shiplap is better than the drywall that was there.

And now you see why  that shelf support was so important. this closet is now the guest bedroom

I made the shelves from rough cut 2 x 12 x 10' cypress, they are still getting finished and won't be installed until everything is painted.

And I mean paint everything. This plywood is sanded very smooth and it looks great as it is. But as with most shiplap, it's supposed to be painted. You want the shadows between the rows of boards to create the visual effect, and that gets enhanced when it's painted. We're painting this bathroom with a satin white paint, so after I finish mudding an taping up the drywall the whole thing is getting kilz primer and a coat of high hide white.

The look of this shiplap is exactly what I wanted. Sure I could have done a better job in framing, and I hate drywall, so my mud jobs are terrible. After I paint everything, I have to run some molding around the edges. We're going to put in some waterproof floor (or maybe tile?) down too with baseboard around it.

So you can totally make your own shiplap and hang it yourself. It's cheap when you use plywood and cut your own. Give it a try! Comment if you've ever done this.