Updating our 90's niche a slatted wood wall

We have been working on putting our stamp on the Lake House we bought last fall.   The house has soaring ceilings and an open floor plan that we love. Although the house was built is 2004 ish the actual plans were designed sometime during the 90's.  The original owners loved the floor plan so much that they built an identical house when they moved from Florida!?!?!  Talk about some house love.  One of the things driving me crazy was a wall niche in the Den.  It's a tiny space to begin with and the layout is such that the sofa has to sit inside this niche (don’t get me started on the 90’s trend of weird niches).  

Here is a photo of the room when it we bought it.

The niche is actually wallpapered in that very popular gold textured paper found everywhere during the 90's.

I wanted something to make it feel a bit more updated.  So off on a Pinterest binge I went.

Wallpaper seemed like a quick fix. Images via Pinterest

Wallpaper seemed like a quick solution and I do love a good grasscloth.  I was looking for texture but still having nightmares about removing the Coca Cola wallpaper I took out of the rental unit (previous post).   I also considered some sort of trellis or bamboo for texture.  I wanted to stay away from another pallet wall as we been there done that with the wood walls and then I saw this...

Joanna does it again! Love the color the small boards! Everything. Image via Pinterest.

I was watching Fixer Upper (alone with my wine and popcorn) that I shouted that's it!!!  I then waited for Dave to come home and made him watch.  He lives for this stuff.  :)  I left the idea to marinate for a bit so wasn’t pushing or anything when the very next Saturday Dave woke up and said: "hey, do you want to work on that wall you showed me today"?  Um, YES!  

The wall itself was fairly easy (although a bit more time consuming than the last walls we have done).  We used 1 x 2's.  Which in real life are 1 x 1.50 ish and randomly nailed them directly to the wall with our pneumatic nail gun.  The tricky part for Dave was the curve at the top.  He drew a template and used that to gauge his cuts.  Worked like a charm.  Now here is the part where I suggest you do as I say and not as I did.  I did NOT stain the boards beforehand.  Why you may be asking?? Two reasons.  1. I was actually flirting with the idea of leaving the wall natural and just sealing it.  2. Most importantly. Because my hubby had woken up on a Saturday am and announced we were going to work on the wall without being asked!!!!!  I am not about to slow momentum down worrying about little things like staining folks!  So, if I had to do it over I would stain beforehand.  It was tricky not getting stain all over.  I used Cherry stain by Minwax.  I love the color.  We are going to throw a coat of poly over it next weekend.

building a slat wood wall.

Finished wall waiting for our picture frames