When we were building our home, I picked my favorite gray paint (SW mindful gray) and painted almost every common area of my home that color. The mudroom was on the list of spaces that got painted Mindful Gray. Unfortunately, it ended up being just a little too dark for such a small space. It took a few months, but I finally got around to doing something different. I landed on the decision to paint the walls white and use a sharpie marker to make Sharpie Shiplap walls!

Of course, I never remember to take a “before” photo. However, this is my end result:

I used paint that I already had on hand, and I also already had a sharpie marker, so this project cost me nothing but an afternoon.

The first thing I did was paint the walls white. After that, I measured up both sides of the wall and put a mark every 6 inches. You can choose a different width, but 6 inches looked right to me, so that is what I went with.

Once I had the marks up the wall where I wanted the edges of my “planks” to be, I held a level up and drew a line all the way across.

I was drawing my sharpie shiplap on three walls that made a cove for my family’s coats. Having two different levels for this project was helpful. I used one that is about 12 inches long and another that is four feet long.

Every time I picked up the marker it never seemed to draw the same when I restarted, so I ended up with this very frustrating little intersection on almost every one.

To deal with these, I used a pencil to blend each section of line into the next.

I finished everything I could reach without a ladder on the back wall first. This was very much just an experiment for me at first.

After I decided that I liked it, I extended my lines all the way around the other two walls.

Once I had all of the lines on all three walls from top to bottom, I added a small piece of trim to vertically on the edge to make some kind of end. Otherwise it looks really unfinished and immediately obvious that you drew lines on your walls.

I’m very happy with the way my free sharpie shiplap turned out, especially after hanging my entryway mirror and keys on the wall. It is so much brighter, much more welcoming, and I’m over the moon that it cost only my time.