2020 was a year of many firsts, including hanging and staining pine tongue and groove all on my own! Well, Nate did help me cut out the outlets, but other than that, I was able to update Avery’s pre-teen room by myself while 6 months pregnant. Below is a reminder of what Avery’s room looked like up for the first few months of living in our new home. Everything was so white and neutral…too neutral.

Before I dive into the project details, I want to talk about Avery’s new mattress gifted from Avocado Mattress. The following review is completely my own thoughts and opinions, you can view my full disclosure here.

When we moved, we upgraded Avery from a full to a queen bed and were on a hunt for a new mattress. I’ve heard great things about Avocado Mattress over the years and have been wanting to try one. Not only are their mattresses organic, they also offer latex, spring and even crib mattresses. Pretty much an option to fit any of your needs! Because we needed a mattress in March 2020 (hello pandemic), getting a mattress online was our best option. The shipping was fast and everything arrived in one big box. We carried the box upstairs to Avery’s room and were able to slide the rolled up mattress right out of the box. It comes in a big plastic bag that is vacuum sealed. We rolled the plastic bag and mattress out on her bed, opened the plastic bag and the mattress instantly started to rise. After about 24 hours the mattress was ready for use, although, we could have used it almost instantly. This thing is so C-U-S-H-Y and comfortable and soft like a cloud. It’s honestly all the things you want in a mattress! It’s 13″ deep and super heavy so this thing isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I also love the fact that if you don’t love your mattress, they offer a 1 year warranty where they handle the packaging and picking up to return. What great customer service!

I haven’t personally slept on the mattress, but Avery says that she loves it! I’ve laid on it a handful of times and feel like I could honestly take a nap on it. I probably should sometime. Ha!

Now onto the accent wall. Here’s a list of everything I needed for this project:
- Pine tongue and groove (purchased from our local lumbar store)
- Select Pine 1×4’s
- Select Pine 1×2’s
- Nail Gun (linked my favorite battery powered nail gun)
- 1 1/2″ Nails
- Minwax True Black Stain
- Miter or Circular Saw
- Tape Measure
I began the project by determining how high I wanted the tongue and groove. I went with 4′ tall boards and cut all my pieces at one time to make my project quick and easy. Because I was staining these a dark color, I stained them before I nailed them up. I could have hung them up first and then stained the boards, but it would have been hard to stain and wipe in the groove. I didn’t take any pictures to document the process, I promise I’ll get better about doing that!
After all the boards were nailed up, I used two 1×4’s across the bottom to act as the baseboard. I used four 1×2’s on the top to finish of the tongue and groove to create a lip. Since there’s a little shelf, we could lean picture frames on the edge if Avery wanted to. Overall, this project took about a weekend. The longest part was staining and waiting for the stain to dry. Here’s a few photos of the after. Any questions? Ask away and I’ll try to answer!


Leave a Reply