Adding an accent wall is a great way to update a room without the commitment of updating every wall. And because it’s just one wall, you can do something a little more flashy than if you were doing all 4 walls, and use that one featured wall as a major talking point and style statement for the whole room (or the whole house). Karen (who you’ll remember from her sewing table beverage station and dresser to hall tree bench) has been updating her weekend country house and she wanted a wall treatment to reflect the rustic vibe in the rest of the room, so she and her husband settled on this corrugated tin wall:
And the best news is — it’s not as hard as you think! Read below for Karen’s instructions on installing the corrugated metal wall. If you prefer a more aged look, you can use this tip from The Ragged Wren for aging the sheet metal, and if you’re not sure if the metal is for you, you can also easily and inexpensively create an accent wall with paint, wood, or wainscoting:
How to Install an Easy Corrugated Tin Wall
by Karen of The Weekend Country Girl
Hello from Texas. My name is Karen and I am a weekend country girl. Our weekend house is a little “near the lake” cabin that we have been enjoying and working on for the past 8 years. We have totally reconfigured our front room over the years to allow for more comfortable seating and accommodate a flat screen television. We removed a door and put in a set of french doors where large windows once were. After all that moving around, I wanted an accent wall that reflected our rustic vibe in the room. Hubby and I came up with the idea of a corrugated tin wall for the room.
Putting a tin wall up in a room is not as challenging as I thought it might be. In my brain it was going to be some super complicated process that would take forever to get done. If you can use a saw, a drill, a level and a stud finder you can do this project.
The tin comes in a variety of lengths and is is 26 1/2 inches wide. The tin allows for an inch and a half overlap to screw the sheets together . We opted to have the tin go from floor to ceiling in one continuous piece on our sloped ceiling room so that meant we needed three 12 foot sections and three 10 foot sections for our wall.
To actually attach the tin to the sheet rock walls there are a few steps we had to take. First we found the studs in the walls and marked them. It was awesome to be able to just write directly on the walls for this part. Usually we are using blue tape to mark our walls.
The next step involves this wavy wood called furring strips that has to be attached to the wall in order to have something to screw the curvy tin to. We used a level to mark lines where we wanted the wood strips to go then attached them with our framing nailer. We could have used screws or hammered nails into the furring strips but the nailer made quick work of getting it up. The trick to installing the wood strips is to make sure that the peaks and valleys line up vertically. That meant cutting of the end of one set so that the first of each section was a valley. Am I making sense here?
After the strips were attached, we got busy with the tin. The first piece we attached was at the highest point.
My husband is a math teacher. Figuring out the angle of the roof-line was his business. Once he got the angle all sorted out, he got out the scariest tool we own in my opinion. the grinder. I am irrationally terrified of the sparks. Hubby cut the pieces to fit leaving a a half inch gap at the bottom of each panel.
After each piece was cut the metal they were screwed into the furring strips with these screws that are specially designed for the tin. The one tip I would give here is to make sure the screws line up horizontally. We have one that is a little lower than the others and it drives me crazy.
We used a piece of cedar trip to trim out the top of the tin and the edges. The bottom is getting a section of painted 1 X 4 as a baseboard.
We love the rustic, industrial look of the wall. It really fits in well at our weekend cabin.
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Thanks so much for sharing with us, Karen! Such a big impact for a relatively small amount of work.
Remodelaholics, go check out the rest of Karen’s amazingly creative projects at The Weekend Country Girl (and stay tuned because she has more to share with us here on Remodelaholic!)
What?! *claps hands* it looks so, so good in this space!
Thanks for featuring my wall. It was an easy weekend project that has a big impact on our tiny cabin in the pines.
Thanks so much for being our guest again, Karen!
It is really a great look! I love everthing karen does!
Thanks, we do, too!
Im doing this next week. How did you attach the trim? Long screws through the peaks? I dont want to crush the metal.
Looks awesome! One questions. How did you trim out the electrical boxes? Can we see a closeup?
Can moisture cause mildew behind the metal?
Where did you get your sheet metal?
how did u do the plug in?
I love the wall and the tutorial. Excellent and fun to read. I don’t mind the trim around the top having gaps, but my ocdness kind of freaks about the gaps around the trim on the bottom. Doesn’t “stuff” get in the gaps? Do you just leave it, or vacuume out as needed or am I imagining it being worse than it could be?
I have seen some people cut their metal to above the bottom piece of trim. It doesn’t look all that bad either.
How did you cut out the outlet holes?
Karen,,I luv the look of the wall…I’m looking to doing the tin…but can’t find the wood furring strips/wiggle molding…can u tell me where u got urs? thanks for any help
I am wanting to install a 3/4 high corrugated metal wall in our basement. Would you do the same when installing on a block wall? Would you add insulation? Thanks!
Hi. ENJOYED & needed your info. I’m doing two inset walls with same corrugated tin sheets that are 8′ H. Problem is I’d like to screw directly to wall board ( has wall paper to be covered up). Thought I could screw directly into studs. If I use furring strips, it will push the tin sheeting outwards past door trims I’d like to leave. Plus I’m having trouble getting ANYTHING to make a hole in tin‼️
Crazy. I’m using tin drill bits, screws, etc. Nothing is doing it whatsoever. THANKS.
I need to find that wooden wiggle molding! I’ve looked at the big box stores in my area (Springville, Utah) and can’t find it. Any ideas?
And—I live right next door to Cass’s mother in Springville! Next time Cass is around I’ll show her how I used wiggle molding in my sewing room. But I still would like to find more…
How did you do the plugs and light switches? My husband and I are using this as our kitchen backsplash but can’t figure out how to do the plugs and switches.
We used spacers behind the light switches and receptacles
how did you cut around the outlets?
How did you trim or mold around door way? We put metal in our bathroom and. Need to trim doors
I notice you have a wood stove w/flue pipe in your photo. I’m thinking about installing a wood stove and using the corrugated tin as a heat shield, but unsure how to do the air gap behind the tin. Can you please explain how you did your air gap (assuming you left one), and is there open space at the top AND the bottom for air flow?