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DIY Bamboo Feature Wall

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May 28, 2013 By Jackie

So, we installed this amazing bamboo focal wall in the basement family room and then hid it from you for months.  Sorry.

Bamboo Feature Wall

This project might go down in history as the longest tease.  The bamboo wall appeared as a backdrop in the Why I Mood Board video and then more recently as a photo backdrop for my basement pillows.  It has been in the reflection of my studio mirror for months, and we used the leftover bamboo to make the counter in the studio.

So why the tease?  Well, I blame Mother Nature.  It snowed on and off until the end of April, which is unseasonable even for Minnesota.  Then, May has been nothing but rain.  The weather delays have prevented us from moving the furniture stored in our garage into the basement.  We have a large sectional that has camped in the garage for the last year.  It is easiest to bring it in through the exterior basement door, but only when the hill on the side of the house is not a ski slope or rain-laden slip ‘n slide.  I did not want to show you the bamboo wall and then make you wait for months to see the completed space.

This past weekend (hooray for a 3-day weekend!) we finally moved the furniture.  It was rainy and overcast, so we just moved more quickly.  Now that the furniture is in I feel more confident that I will be able to pull this space together in the next few weeks.  Finally, I am ready to share with you the bamboo feature wall…the start of our new family room!

Before moving furniture into our new basement family room, we wanted to tackle one big project. The far wall in the room spans 17 feet and is not interrupted by any windows or doors. It’s the perfect spot for a big feature wall.

The hubby and I have long-loved carbonized bamboo. It is the slightly darker shade of the popular flooring option. We would have loved bamboo flooring throughout the basement, but it is not recommended for below grade installation.  So…on the wall it goes!

You’ll recall bamboo was in the plans since the beginning. I included a sample in our basement finishes roundup. It also made its way onto the family room mood board. This is the first of three homes we’ve owned that hasn’t had any DIY bamboo action yet. In our first home, we replaced carpet in the entry for the more traffic friendly bamboo. In our last home, we installed bamboo flooring in our master bedroom. It was only a matter of time before we gave this house some bamboo love.

Now, when we walk down into the basement we are greeted with this:

Bamboo Feature Wall

We planked our family room feature wall in bamboo tongue and groove flooring! At only $1.99 a sq ft it was an affordable option with big impact. The bamboo really warms up the space, which was part of the plan from the beginning. The white walls and blue carpet are cool, but I knew I would warm the space up with the bamboo wall.

Bamboo Feature Wall

The installation was really easy. We started by finding all the studs on the wall and marking their centers with a pencil line down the wall. The lines served as a guide for where to nail the planks.

We started at the top of the wall to make sure we would have full width pieces up there. We wanted any cut pieces to be hidden under the baseboard at the bottom of the wall. We opted to face nail the flooring with an electric nail gun. It was the easiest and quickest way to get the wall up. There is a lot of color variation in the bamboo, so I knew a little wood filler over the nail holes wouldn’t be noticeable when it was finished.

Bamboo Feature Wall

To keep the bamboo from looking like flooring, we used a different approach for staggering our seams. On a floor installation you typically stagger the seams randomly.  We wanted a more intentional design for the feature wall.  I fell in love with the zipper technique John and Sherry used on their deck. We staggered our seams the width of one board to create the same type of zipper effect. It is a really cool extra detail on the wall.

bamboofeaturewallzipperseam

bamboofeaturewall5

The bamboo planks varied widely in color. We made sure to mix up light and dark boards as we went along. Having debated wild choices like tiger stripe bamboo before settling on simple carbonized bamboo, we are pretty happy with the end result. We still got a lot of interesting color variation, without a wild pattern we might tire of quickly.

Once we neared the bottom of the wall, we were running low on planks and I wanted to save the last carton for the bamboo counter in my studio. I realized the last row would be completely hidden behind our chunky white baseboards. Instead of using full planks, I nailed a small piece from the scrap pile to each stud. These pieces served as spacers to nail the baseboard to.  In the photo below, you can see the bamboo spacers nailed to the stud on the left side and a piece of baseboard on the right side, showing how the baseboard will cover the spacers.

bamboowall

To finish off the wall, we added the chunky white baseboard at the bottom. The cuts on each side of the wall weren’t all perfectly even and there were a few gaps at the ceiling, so we used 1″ cove molding to frame the wall on the sides and at the ceiling.

Bamboo Focal Wall

Now we need to start saving our pennies for that awesome fireplace we want in front of the feature wall. The fireplace and a family picture will be the only things going on this wall, so we can keep plenty of exposed bamboo and zipper seams to marvel at.

Let me leave you with one more shot showing the new focal wall in relationship to the game area.

bamboofeaturewall4

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Comments

  1. Jessie says

    May 28, 2013 at 9:44 am

    Looks great!
    Wonder if can do that in my boys’ playroom! How do you measure how much “flooring” you will need?

    How much boxes did you use on your space?

    • Jackie says

      May 28, 2013 at 11:48 am

      Jessie, A bamboo wall would be awesome in a playroom and pretty durable. For our 17 ft. wall we used just shy of 140 sq feet of flooring. You can determine how many square feet the wall is by multiplying the width of the wall by the height of the wall. Each carton of flooring will tell you exactly how many square feet it covers. Divide the square footage of your wall by how many square feet a carton covers to determine how many cartons you need.

  2. Sarah says

    May 28, 2013 at 10:30 am

    This wall is GORGEOUS!! Oh my goodness, I can’t even believe how great the zipper seams looks & how it warms up this space. You have such a great eye for detail.
    Sarah

    • Jackie says

      May 28, 2013 at 11:46 am

      Thank you, Sarah! The zipper seams are incredible. We are so glad we decided to do that.

  3. Connie says

    May 28, 2013 at 12:46 pm

    I love this! Since it was Memorial Day I wanted to be sure and thank you and your spouse for your service to our country.

    • Jackie says

      May 28, 2013 at 3:36 pm

      Thank you Connie.

  4. Gwen says

    May 28, 2013 at 4:54 pm

    Love it. But then I absolutely love my parents high quality wood panel wall at their home. It truly is a feature. I’d even thought about how Why not change things from the 60’s and use flooring sideways? But a zipper line? That is what really stands out We thought this through.
    Wow!!! And to think of your scraps as fillers. Way to go! And we never knew you did THIS too along with all your other projects!!! Block party at your basement. Tents set up for kids. Table for grown ups!!! Since its still raining and all!!! Oh how wonderful! A truly amazing inspiration

  5. Chelsea says

    May 28, 2013 at 6:06 pm

    umm… This is FANTASTIC. I absolutely love it!

    • Jackie says

      May 28, 2013 at 6:16 pm

      Thanks Chelsea! Fantastic is exactly what we were going for :)

  6. [email protected] says

    May 28, 2013 at 7:42 pm

    Wow! The bamboo looks amazing. The space looks so welcoming and fresh.

    • Jackie says

      May 28, 2013 at 8:07 pm

      Thanks Char. Can’t wait to get the furniture in place and make this room useable.

  7. Erin Bettis says

    May 28, 2013 at 11:13 pm

    That looks great Jackie! You certainly have an eye for beautiful interiors.

    – Erin

  8. Erin Bettis says

    May 28, 2013 at 11:13 pm

    That looks great Jackie! You certainly have an eye for beautiful interiors.

  9. Holly says

    September 2, 2015 at 6:32 am

    This is beautiful and exactly what my husband and I are attempting. What brand and color is your bamboo? Where did you purchase it? I love the natural variations in the planks. Thank you!

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