Black Ceiling Bedroom Remodel with White Board and Batten Walls

We’re so close to finished on the Main House Fixer Upper! If you’ve followed along, you know that my husband and I bought the acreage here with two small homes. I have been slowly fixing them up. The Main House has had its roof replaced, siding replaced, new nailed down floors, new bathroom, and I recently completed the small IKEA kitchen. Whew. Now, the bedroom has a fresh coat of white paint and new flooring. We could just move our bed in and call it a day. But I have a vision for the bedroom that makes my heart sing. Let’s see if I can bring the picture in my head of a black ceiling bedroom remodel with white board and batten walls to life.

But first, here is the before photo when we first toured the house. So much room for improvement!

Here is the bedroom after smoothing the drywall and giving the walls and ceiling a fresh coat of paint. More details on how to smooth drywall texture can be found here. It was a tedious task but so worth it. Ah yes, we also replaced the windows. You can see the new floors. I also started on the window sills and baseboard trim.

Black Ceiling Bedroom Remodel:

Like I said, I want a black ceiling in this bedroom remodel. I don’t care if it sounds crazy or weird. I can’t get it out of my head. It must be done.

So, I narrowed down three black colors I though looked good from the swatches and tested them on the walls and ceiling. I also want a black that matches the ceiling fan you can see in the photo below. I love that fan so much that I have one in the kitchen, the office, and this bedroom. Hey, design consistency is good thing! It’s a Hunter Fan in the Cranbrook model in gloss black.

These are the final three contenders for the black ceiling paint from Home Depot. They are Behr colors named Dark Secret, Limousine Leather, and Blackout Black. Blackout black ended up being the truest black and best match to the ceiling fan. It’s also the same black I used on the front doors and the kitchen in the front cabin. But I was open to trying something new!

Here is the bedroom all prepped for paint. I will be using a paint sprayer so everything that shouldn’t be painted black needs to be covered. I want the black on the ceiling to extend down the upper part of the walls for a classier look (hopefully!). The blue horizontal line shows where the black will end.

Below is a link to the paint sprayer I used and have used for all the projects here at One Hundred Acres Home since I last tried painting the whole front cabin by hand. I did that once and never again! This sprayer has been a HUGE time saver and well worth the initial investment.

Here is the freshly painted black ceiling. Suddenly that window covering with blue tape really looks like a menacing face! It’s kind of spooky in here.

I plan to install an IKEA Pax wardrobe in the closet area. Since this will get covered up, why not leave my signature on the wall like in the cavemen paintings? Left-handers unite!

Adjust the Black Paint Line:

Ok well. I like the black ceiling, but it’s a little too much. Too heavy. Too low on the wall. My husband agrees. I need to lift the white up a little bit. After much debate, I decided to move the divide up to nearly the top of the windows as you can see in the photo below. It also made sense to frame out the windows in white. I kept it simple with a 1×2 trim to outline the windows installed with an 18 gage brad nailer to the drywall. Then I started the horizontal trim for a board and batten effect on the walls.

The horizontal trim along the walls consists of a 1×3 flat against the wall and then capped with a 1×2 laid flat so it extends out a bit. I brad nail these to the wall and to each other.

Painting over black takes a lot of coats. I think this is three coats of primer in the photo below. But you can start to see the difference in raising the white line. This is much better placement for the black ceiling. Now it’s more of a black hat or cap instead of a cloak.

Below is the adjacent wall as I work my way around the room with the horizontal start for the board and batten wall effect – more on that later.

Bedroom Remodel IKEA Pax Wardrobe Closet:

I need to install the closet wardrobe before we can finish out the board and batten trim. The closet will be made using IKEA’s Pax wardrobes and doors. I’ll trim it out to give it a built-in look to flow with the board and batten trim.

Here are the two Pax wardrobe frames that would fit in the closet space. IKEA has a really handy Pax wardrobe design planner on their website that I used to work out the frame sizes, drawer, and door options.

Next, I added the shelves and drawers. You can see I’ve started to trim out frames so there is no gap between the Pax wardrobes and the walls and ceiling. I simply used scrap trim boards and brad-nailed them along the Pax frames to keep them in place.

The very bottom row will have a pull-out shoe platform. It juuuust fits below the bottom Pax door hinges. I had to make a special visit to the IKEA showroom to confirm this would work.

New Bedroom Door:

All the interior doors are getting replaced. So I was happy to have the bedroom door show up just in time for this bedroom remodel. Here is how it arrived off the delivery truck – upside down and on a pallet.

Below is a photo of the new bedroom door installed along with door trim and top rail for the board and batten. My husband and I installed all new interior doors after watching many install videos on YouTube.

The blue tape marks along the wall are marking wall studs even though I ended up shifting the batten spacing slightly to be more evenly spaced along the wall.

Bedroom Remodel Board and Batten Walls:

Following are the sizes of trim used for the board and batten walls. The trim was installed in the order listed.

1. Trim around the bedroom door is 1×4 trim.
2. Baseboards along the floor are 1×4 trim.
3. Windows are trimmed out with 1×2 boards along the sides and top. You can use wider trim if that’s what you prefer. The 1×2 worked with my previously installed window sills.
4. The top horizontal rail consists of a 1×3 flat along the wall that is capped with a 1×2 horizontal that juts out from the wall slightly.
5. Vertical battens are 1×2 trim spaced approximately 16 inches on center along the walls. I planned out the vertical spacing to balance them along a wall and also used two verticals at each visible corner.

Below you can see the board and batten trim progress in this black ceiling bedroom remodel. That big yellow ball is the pressure tank for the 18 gage brad nailer that I used to nail the trim pieces to the wall.

Here is a close up of the trim around the retro wall heater. I bevel cut the trim where it hits the heater to give it a more finished look. The cut ends will be primed and painted white.

When needed, I notched the trim around the wall outlet as you can see below.

The vertical trim spacing is slightly less than 16 inches on the small wall to the left of the closet. They are about 14 inches on center because that just looked better on the small wall section. You may also notice that the white on the closet doors doesn’t quite match the walls. After this photo, I took the Pax doors down, primed them with Kinsser primer and painted them to match the walls for a uniform look.

Bedroom Furniture & Finishing Touches:

The board and batten trim is finished by filling all nail holes with white wood filler. Let that dry and then sand it smooth. Next, run white paintable calking where the trim meets the wall and at intersections. Once that is dry, paint. I used a satin Behr paint from Home Depot in Ultra Bright white.

Once the walls were done, I moved in the bedroom furniture! This is a white-stained IKEA Hemnes bed with matching nightstands. I changed out the nightstand drawer handles to IKEA hackas handles that match what I used in the bathroom remodel.

I want to keep this room simple and uncluttered looking so I opted for simple white wall mounted nightstand lights you can see in the photo below. These are the Nymane model from IKEA.

That small wall to the left of the closet has just enough space for a dresser. Here is the koppang model dresser from IKEA using the hackas drawer pulls. The round mirror softens the hard lines and adds some intrigue. This mirror is the stockholm model from IKEA.

Here is a wider view of the closet wall. I love how the ceiling fan really matches the space. You can see the finished closet doors and a simple black door knob on the new bedroom door.

Last but least, simple pull-down blackout cellular shades cover the windows. Do you like how this black ceiling bedroom remodel turned out? Let me know in the comments below and thanks for stopping by.

If you’re interested, below are Amazon.com links to the ceiling fan and door knob I used. The other products are very similar options to what I used in this remodel.