Jul 25

Jul 25 Wood Slat Wall

An impactful home office upgrade

The backstory

So I know we’re late to the game when it comes to creating an ideal home office for working remotely. To be honest, when we started working from home over a year and a half ago we thought we’d make do with the space as is and not really invest in it. We had the essentials and were just grateful to be working. Flash forward, E is starting to go back in a few times a week and now that I’m in a fully-remote role, I thought it was important to create a space that I could work comfortably and confidently from five days a week.

Now, you know we love all the Japandi vibes. And when we think of adding any wood accents, we always lean on the lighter side. We’ve loved the idea of a vertical wood slat wall because 1) it’d offer a great natural texture and 2) we thought it’d make our ceilings feel higher. Turns out, it was going to be trickier to bring to life than we thought.

When we first had this idea, we figured we’d DIY it and get dozens of 1x2s and give it a go. There are so many video tutorials of this on YouTube and we thought, “how hard could it be?” As we looked into it further and consulted our favorite handyman Tom, we realized we weren’t fully thinking it through. Tom helped us see that our plaster walls would not take to the nail gun nicely and he recommended we avoid liquid nails in the event the installation didn’t go perfectly. So, it was back to the internet to figure out a different solution for getting the look we wanted.

That’s when we found this product called Acupanel distributed by The Wood Veneer Hub. It’s usually used for acoustic purposes in music studios or co-working spaces to help with ambient noise and what we loved about it was the look and the easy install. Instead of having to attach each wood plank to the wall, this product comes in panels of thick felt-like material with the wood slats fixed to it, which cuts down the amount of holes you have to put in your walls. Score!

Now, before you give us any credit - no, we didn’t install it. Although it is easier than going one piece of wood at a time, we still didn’t trust ourselves to execute to our standards. It’s helpful to know where your good intentions stop and limits start. So we placed our order, texted the brilliantly crafty Tom and set a date to get it done. We expected the product to take forever to be delivered because of all the horror stories you hear about delays, but it shipped in less than 48 hours and arrived in a week - one day early!

You can see by the look on E’s face that it was a happy day. Mostly because it was a smooth process from ordering to install and it’s all thanks to Tom. Bonus, when I hop on the Zoom, I am so proud of the wall whenever someone mistakes it for a virtual background.