Get The Shiplap Look For Less Than $5 With Sharpie Shiplap!

Shiplap. Shiplap. Shiplap.

Yes, I have an obsession with it. But if that’s wrong, I don’t want to be right!

Shiplap has been around for a minute, and I don’t think it’s going anywhere anytime soon.

It’s so pretty and simple but still adds so much character!

Honestly, if it were up to me, I’d shiplap every square inch of my home. Not exaggerating. But who has the time or budget for that?

But what I do have the time and budget for is faux shiplap. And honestly, you get the same effect without all the pain and nail holes!

I’m in the middle of a closet refresh and wanted to add a feature wall, because why not?

Because it’s my closet, I opted for the cheapest version of shiplap imaginable…

Sharpie Shiplap.

If you haven’t heard of it, don’t worry! I’m going to walk you through this simple process right here, right now, so you can get started (and probably finish) your Sharpie Shiplap project within the next day or two — really!

Let’s dig into the details, shall we?

GET THE SHIPLAP LOOK FOR LESS THAN $5 WITH SHARPIE SHIPLAP

I didn’t waste any time getting started on my sharpie shiplap wall!

STEP 1: PAINT YOUR WALL WHITE

Using leftover paint, we painted two coats of Behr Premium Plus Ultra Pure White on the wall in one sitting. Because who has the time or patience to wait?

Please note: I don’t necessarily recommend painting two coats all at once without letting it dry the recommended try time, but this time, it worked for us.

Sometimes I’m too impatient for my own good. Sometimes it works out!

I did let that paint dry about 12 hours before I started on my Sharpie Shiplap though!

STEP 2: GATHER YOUR SUPPLIES

Then I gathered my many, many hard to find materials (ahem, kidding)…

• A pencil
• A pack of Sharpies (Yes, a whole pack — get at least 3-4 per wall)
• A yardstick
• A level
• Painters tape

STEP 3: MEASURE

I started by measuring down the wall and adding small pencil marks every 5 inches to represent 5-inch shiplap boards. I did this on both sides of the wall for reference points.

STEP 4: START DRAWING YOUR SHIPLAP

Then, I simply took my yardstick and lined it up with the notches, held up my yardstick so I’d be able to draw a straight line, and used my level to ensure the yardstick was totally straight.

Before you draw, attach a strip of painter’s tape to the bottom of your yardstick so you can help attach it to the wall as you go. The last thing you want is to have your yardstick slip every time you try to draw your straight lines!

I cannot encourage you enough to use a level throughout this entire process! Our walls aren’t perfectly aligned. In fact, our ceilings and floors are not level, so this was crucial for my lines to be straight.

Trust your level, not your ceilings and floors!

Then start drawing your shiplap lines!

A few tips to consider here:

• Always start at the same side of your wall! Meanwhile back at ceilings and floors aren’t necessarily straight! Your notches might not be either. Save yourself the headache and go left to right every time!
• Purchase multiple sharpies and switch them out as you go! Take note of when the head gets flat and ditch those. The fresher the sharpie, the more seamless the lines will be.
• Taper off your sharpie mark as you draw across the wall. What I mean is as you near the end of your yardstick, ease up on your sharpie line. That way you can overlap your yardstick with your line and draw over the existing line a bit to make it a little more seamless as you move across the wall… make sense?
• When you need to pull in a ladder to reach the top of the wall, go left to right, but do all your lines in a column before you move your ladder to the middle of the wall… I hope that makes sense! The last thing you want is to move your ladder 30 times when 3 times would have worked too!

Oh and a bonus… be prepared for your children to run in and ask if they, too, can draw on the walls. That was a tough one to explain! Anyways…

If you have someone who can help you hold your yardstick while you draw your shiplap lines, that’s even better, but the tape worked well for me to do this solo with minimal mess-ups!

Now part of me wishes I could tell you there are so many other steps to this process. That it was a hard project that turned out great after blood, sweat, and tears, but you should know by now I’m not that kind of DIY-er!

So that’s basically it.

Measure, level, draw, switch out your sharpies, repeat!

Simply repeat this process until your walls have been successfully shiplapped!

For a full video how-to – head to my Instagram Page and find the highlight titled Sharpie Shiplap!

STEP 5: TOUCH UP

Lastly, grab a small paintbrush and some of your leftover white paint and touch up any slip-ups made along the way!

I love these foam brushes for touch ups!

YES, IT’S REALLY THAT SIMPLE

And that’s it! See I told you it was simple. And odds are you already have all (or most) of these materials in your home already! I only had to buy sharpies, so I was able to do this project for less than $4!

Talk about a cheap and easy way to achieve that shiplap look! And boy does it make a difference!

So what do you think? Will you give it a try? Honestly, you have absolutely nothing to lose!

Want more easy do-it-yourself ideas? Check out my floor stenciling tutorial and my shiplap wallpaper how to!