We have always had an “accent” wall in our son’s room. Even when we repainted his room to create the Star Wars Boys Room, we kept a wee accent. A recent overhaul of our daughters room and some need for balance between siblings gave us the idea to punch it up — and having a bunch of free wood that Nichole found on our local marketplace that was begging to be made into something.
We drew many options of what it could possibly look like trying to emulate various Star Wars ships – some had potential while others crashed and burned on the drawing board. In the end, the venerable x-wing became the inspiration!
Time to build!
Remove Baseboard Trim with No Damage to Wall
The top of our existing baseboard had a thinner edge and we wanted the accent wood on the wall to look seamless. The existing baseboard had to go–and I didn’t want to have to fix any holes. Here’s a simple no-damage way to remove trim – it make take longer to remove the trim but overall, it’s faster than having to patch holes from the butt of your prybar.
Paint the Wall and Baseboard
We changed up the wall color to make it a little lighter. I love painting about as much as sanding. I do really like a crisp edge line though. Check out our tips for perfect edge lines: https://designstylelove.com/perfect-paint-lines/(opens in a new tab). We threw up two coats, and then we threw up two more coats — need to keep getting our paint from actual paint stores.
The remaining wall baseboard had a miter and wouldn’t look good mitered with the flat trim baseboard for the accent wall – a butt joint for the win. I used a scrap of trim to mark a cut line and pulled out my Harbor Freight oscillating saw to square the miter – that thing just keeps on going. Except, it died at the end of this project as I was sanding.
We painted the new baseboard off the wall – I’m a messy painter and we didn’t want blue carpet or trying to tape the carpet down with blue tape. Attach the baseboards and you’re ready to size the accent boards.
Decide on Wall Layout
This was the tricky part and I wish there was some magic in the way that we achieved the result. We decided that 1 inch thick wood pieces would look good (after cutting 3/4, 1, and 1 1/4 inch boards). We also had 10-foot boards that I ripped the slats from and this set our length. This resulted in a 50-degree and a 40-degree angle. We just kept adding boards until we found a width we liked – nine was the magic number.
TIP: Paint the ends of your boards that will touch the ceiling if not using a top frame piece. This will save a lot of trouble when finishing the boards.
Make sure to keep at least one long board. Mark the middle of your center board and use that as your reference and mark where other boards will go. If you trust you have the center, you can also measure from the wall to the center board along the top and bottom and then mark those same distances on half-board areas.
I precut boards using the same angle at the ceiling (40 degrees). I used my 3-inch reference piece to line up the board and mark where it needed to be cut. The angle where it connected to the boards was 10 degrees (technically 100 degrees, but a 10 degree cut with the miter saw.
Keep adding boards until they are all up. I caulked some of the boards as I went and filled nail holes as well. Caulking the edges will avoid gaps and spaces between the boards and the wall. I use DAP Alex caulk around $2 a tube – I needed 2 for this project. You don’t need the expensive stuff for this type of project – it’s a trap – stay away. Once the caulk is dry its time to paint.
Subtle X-Wing Homage Complete
The subtle homage to the x-wing is complete and fits in nicely with the Star Wars themed room.
