Materials used:
- Wood filler
- Spackle knife
- Toothpick
- Medium grit sandpaper
- Small art paint brush
- Painters tape
- Caulk
- 1 gallon eggshell paint w/ built in primer (Ultra pure white by Behr)
If you missed part one – here it is.
To recap, we’ve installed our shiplap to our fireplace wall and built-in walls and now it’s time to finish it out.
Our first step was to hammer in all the nails so that they were flush with the shiplap. Because they didn’t look very noticeable, we chose not to use wood filler on all the nail holes like some tutorials.
We did have to apply quite a bit of wood filler to our outer corners where there was a significant gap where the boards lined up. 
I used a spackle knife and spread the filler into the areas and scraped the excess away. Before letting it dry, I recommend taking a toothpick to get the filler out of your nickel-gapping or you’ll lose that beautiful gap you worked so hard for. Once dry, I sanded the area down until it felt smooth and level to the touch. You can take a small art paint brush to brush the powder out of your gaps.
I also applied wood filler to a few areas where the veneer had chipped off badly at the end of a few boards.
I applied the wood filler on the outer corners probably 3-4 rounds with sanding each time in between. It was very time consuming and very dusty. What complicated our project more was that the boards on the fireplace wall expand and shift when the fireplace is turned on. I had pretty much got everything smooth when I discovered this one day and it left a nice crack down each filled area. Looking back, I probably should’ve used caulk for this because it would’ve been more flexible but it’s too late now. I think if I notice it cracking again I’ll run a little caulk in the small gap.
I next caulked wherever my boards met the ceiling or base molding and around the fireplace. Caulking can be messy if you wing it. I recommend taping your area off. It’s more time consuming but results in a neat and tidy caulk line. Place your tape as close to the edge of the board and leave 1/4 inch gap at the other tape strip from the corner. Run a bead of caulk into the corner and then use a finger to spread the caulk. Once done, quickly remove your tape. In areas where there was a larger gap I had to go back and apply a second round of caulk because when it dried it left a bubbly gap.
Every single shiplap tutorial that I read did not mention how to paint shiplap. I originally thought I would paint the edges of each board before installing them but it was taking so long that I gave up. Little did I know painting the edges would take so much more time after they’re on the walls. So if you’re reading this and you only take 1 thing from this: PAINT THE EDGES OF THE BOARDS BEFORE YOU NAIL THEM UP.
Here’s how I thought it would go: I thought I’d take my small trim paint brush, paint into all the cracks and then put on a few coats of paint using my roller. But when I took my trim brush and painted into the cracks – nothing happened. A very MINIMAL amount of paint went in there. I was stumped – now what? So Eric suggested I go ahead and roll on the paint and then see what it looked like. So I did. I put on 2 coats of paint and it looked good….from afar. But up close you could see the sides of each board were wood colored. 
Because of the angle of each of these cracks it was really only evident on the fireplace wall and at the boards near eye level on the other walls. So I went in again with my trim brush – loaded it up and jabbed it into those cracks. I followed up with a toothpick to get out excess paint and my trim brush to smooth the paint out. But it was only maybe 30% effective at getting paint in there. So then Eric suggested my little art paint brush. I tried it and it worked much better. But still – we’re talking real slow because I’m literally taking a paint brush the size of your pinky finger to paint little by little into these cracks. So I hit the high spots – the fireplace wall and especially those corners which were the most apparent and the boards at eye level on the other walls. 
I then followed up with 1 more coat of paint on the entire surface. 2 coats was close but 3 coats looks better. EDIT: After about a month, I noticed the color of the white had yellowed significantly. It was as if the wood was bleeding through. So I painted another 2 coats of paint and that seemed to do the trick. 5 coats of paint – really? Yes, really…ugggh.
We’re very happy with how it looks and now we’re excited to get built-ins installed on either side of the fireplace to finish out the space.
So we began our project at Lowe’s. We did a little math (not so well) and we purchased 3 sheets of ~1/4 inch oak plywood and had an employee at the store cut the boards down to 8 inch strips. We later went back and got 2 more boards to finish the project. It cost us about $150 for 5 sheets.
Other tutorials used 5.5 or 6 inch but I wanted some chunky 8 inch boards and we have 9 foot ceilings so I figured it could work. Also, real deal shiplap is 8 inches. The thing about real shiplap is it’s probably level across the top and bottom of the boards. The thing about getting plywood cut down is IT WILL BE UNLEVEL. And that was with some pretty special attention used to cut the boards by the guys at Lowe’s that helped us. Each board seemed to have a nice taper to it, especially near the ends. The other thing to consider is that each board will be a different width. No 2 boards will be the same and you’ll have anywhere from 7.5 inch to 8.25 inch width boards. This will mess you up because that perfect nickel gap you want will go to heck if you use 2 different width boards on a row. So in theory, you should use boards the same width across each row. The problem will be that you can’t always get it perfect. Sometimes you have to use a board that’s not quite what you need and then your spacing gets funky. And then on the next row you try to correct it by using a bigger/smaller board in that area which helps some but it still ends up looking off. Each 4’x8′ sheet of plywood will yield 5 full pieces of shiplap and a 6th piece that’s more narrow. This piece can’t be used except at the bottom of the project if you don’t need a full board. 
We realized this wasn’t completely necessary later on because you’ll be able to see where you’ve nailed into the other boards and will have a pretty good idea where your stud is, but it didn’t hurt.
We then moved around the room, leveling up each board and nailing into the studs. 
By the second board we had already eaten up our 1/4 inch buffer and were flush to the ceiling which was a little scary because we had a long ways to go to make it around the fireplace. Fortunately, it appears that most of the ceiling from that way on is pretty level. And even if it isn’t, we got the boards as close to the ceiling as we could while leveling them and shot them into place.
What happened on the left of the fireplace needed to match the right. Or if it was going to be random, it needed to all look random. Because most of our cuts were basically 6′, 4′ or 2′, a pattern emerged early on. Once we got to the tv rack, the pattern would’ve then got thrown out because we would then be making some different cuts. So what we did on the left would not match the right. If it had all been random, it would’ve looked good. But because the left was pattern and the right was random we thought it would look odd. So we decided to keep whatever we did on the left as what we did on the right.
Yes, that spacing around the outlet is not our best work. But with the TV covering that board almost entirely we pretty much did not care enough to make it look any better.
Then it came time to do it all again for the left side. This time we allowed more than enough space to the left of the board. Also we got rather good with the dremel tool the first time around so we used it mostly to make the intricate cut and the result is that the left side is just about damn perfect. 
Basic Blue House 