Decorated Chaos: Easy Way to Create an Entryway and Tip for Cutting Bead Board

As you may remember, after Christmas I started my living room makeover.

I started by painting the room a new color and updating the accessories.

And for those of you who follow me on Twitter and Instagram have caught a glimpse of my final project in the living room but I will give everyone a hint...it involves creating an entryway space by the front door.

You see, here is the wall in question:

The space is tiled already and the tile kind of marks off what would be an entry way area so I have a good spot to start with, but in order to fully create a usable entryway I need to do something with the walls so I decided on doing a bead board wall treatment.

I purchased a style of bead board similar to this that had winder planks than the traditional bead board.

Unfortunately, I thought I also too a picture of the ACTUAL one I purchased and I must have forgotten, but this is very similar to the one I got.

My wall is 36 3/4, just a little more than 3ftt wide, so I bought one sheet and had the wonderful guys at HD cut a piece to my exact measurements.

Now, for all of you beginners out there, here is my tip for putting up your bead board.

Use a template.

Yup. That simple. A template....who knew?!

Here are my steps for using the template method:

This is how I did it and it worked great for me so I am passing the tip on to you with a step by step tutorial:

Before doing anything I measured the length and width of the space I wanted to cover with the bead board and had the guys at HD cut it to my exact measurements.
After that my bead board is the right size, I turned it over and rolled out a piece of wrapping paper to the same size as my bead board and then taped it to my wall.
What I have now is a piece of wrapping paper that meets the exact measurements of my bead board and my space, so all I have to do is take scissors and score/cut around the outlet and light holes.

To do this just simply use your hands to feel around the space and score with your scissors accordingly, then cut your scored lines.

Once the template was ready with the holes cut out I took it off the wall, flipped my bead board over and taped it to the front of my bead board to secure it for my next step.

Next, just take a pencil and trace around where the outlet and light switch holes, then use your tools to cut them out.

That's me tracing the holes for the light switches and wall socket onto the bead board.

We used a Dremel to cut out the holes but you can use whatever cutting tool you chose.

Once the holes are cut out its time to nail the bead board in place.

Many people will tell you to use liquid nails on the back of your bead board so its completely secure to the wall with no warps, BUT my space is fairly small AND I want the flexibility of being able to remove it later down the road without tearing into my sheet rock. so I opted for simply nailing it with a nail gun and I did NOT use ANY adhesive on the back.