I used to near a farm with the next house being far enough away that I didn’t have to look at anyone. But that changed when a bunch of new development and duplexes went up. Two of which are like 10 feet away from my fence and when I go out my front or back door, I can literally look into their master bedroom.
Well, this isn’t exactly appealing to me especially considering that I want to use my back patio with some privacy. So I’ve decided to put up a privacy wood slat wall. After some thought and planning, I’ve come up with something that works for my situation and I’ll lay out how I’ve done it here. I would say that my situation is a bit unique considering the size that I needed to cover and if it were smaller, I would’ve gone a different route but I’ll get into that later. This blog is more so just going to cover some of the things that I discovered as I did the project, tips and recommendations that I want to share, not so much and exact how to because your situation is going to be different from mine.
Now, this project can be fairly simple and straightforward but it can also be quite complicated depending on how you want to put your slats up. I essentially went what I thought was one of the simplest ways possible and that was to put up two backer boards that I screwed all of my slats into. I did this because I knew that I was going to have to put a bunch of holes into wood. But I didn’t think that this was going to be a long-term or permanent feature of my home so I would rather put the majority of the holes into the backer boards, rather than the pillars of my home.
For my project, I went with 1”x2” sticks for my backer boards. I did this to keep the backer boards as slim and minimal as possible so they’re not super in your face when you look at the final result. I wanted people to focus on the slats, not the boards they’re attached to. However, if you go with the 1”x2”, you’re going to have a very narrow surface area to screw into which can be somewhat difficult and I myself did have a few screws blow out at an angle because I wasn’t holding the drill straight. If you want to make it easier for yourself, I’d recommend going with 2”x2” backer boards. You’ll have a much easier time and more screw placement options. With the 1”x2”, you’re basically screwing into the edge of the board.
For my slats, I decided to use dimensional construction lumber because this was essentially the only option that I had. I needed 10’ long boards so 2x boards were realistically the only option at my local big box stores. I went with 2”x6” because I thought that that would best match my surrounding wood. Had this area been 8’ or less, I would’ve probably gone with cedar fence pickets because that would’ve been available and they’re thinner, lighter weight, and more manageable to work with than trying to put up 2x material. Dimensional lumber also sucks in the sense that it can have a lot of inconsistencies. On the day that I went to buy wood, there were a bunch of bowed and twisted boards so I just got the best that I could and that definitely made things a bit harder as some of these slats just did not want to align properly. So keep that in mind if you’re going to use construction lumber. Pick the best, straightest boards that you can to save yourself some problem-solving time.
In terms of the spacing between my slats, I used pieces of the scrap 1”x2” that I had left over. Of course, the 1”x2” is actually 0.75”x1.5” so my spacing was 0.75”. I would say that this is the maximum gap that I would personally recommend if you’re actually using this slat wall for privacy because even with this, if I really focus on what I’m trying to look at behind the wall, I can shift around and totally make it out. If I were to do this project again, I would probably go with a 0.5” gap, maybe even a 0.25” gap for really good privacy but still having a gap.
Now, I did paint my slats black to match the house and I would say that painting the slats perceptually gave me more privacy. It’s just harder to see through the black slats for whatever reason than leaving the wood raw. So in my situation, having the 0.75” gap ended up not giving up too much privacy,
Speaking of painting, this is something that you should definitely think about when considering gap size. The smaller the gap the harder it’s going to be to paint or apply whatever coating you choose between those slats. If your gap is too small, you’re basically forced to apply the coating before putting all the wood up. Keep that in mind so you don’t have to take everything down, paint, then put it all back up again.
And that’s basically it. Again, a fairly simple project that could be completed in a day. This is a project that I can recommend to DIY rather than paying someone to do it because it’s a fairly easy one to accomplish.
