How to Sharpie Shiplap and Review

Ahhh... Sharpie Shiplap. It has become quite common and popular to use in households as a way to do faux shiplap at an affordable cost. If you are somehow stumbling across this post confused as to what sharpie shiplap, it basically consists of drawing lines on your wall with a sharpie pen or marker to mimic shiplap.

Now I will give you a warning now... I attempted Sharpie shiplap for the sole purpose of the review and currently, we have removed our green carpet and baseboards with plans to replace with LVT and new baseboards. So in the images you see, you may see some ugly floors and missing baseboards..... just a warning..

I introduce to you....

Sharpie Shiplap

Now lets get to the supplies and how to

Supplies:

• Sharpie Marker (oil based)

• Level

• Pencil

• Magic eraser

Steps:

1. First if necessary, I recommend washing your walls to have the nice white background..

2. Mark your wall every 5 inches down

3. Use your level to get a straight line and trace above, creating a pencil guide

4. Now follow the guide with your sharpie, still using your level or rule as a straight edge.

5. Continue until all of your lines are complete

You are all set! Sharpie shiplap all completed!

Now for the review.

In this months review I compared this to Washi tape shiplap because the cost and looks are quite similar however the application differs. I'll link the youtube video here if you prefer to just see it all at once.

Soooo lets talk Sharpie Shiplap:

PROS:

• Affordable (less than $10)

• Immediate results

• Somewhat beginner friendly

CONS:

• Error prone

• Expect 4-5 coats of primer to conceal

• Magic eraser is only so helpful

There is no doubt that sharpie shiplap is beyond affordable. For 2 packs of the marker it cost me less than $10 whereas completing this wall would have cost me somewhere around $110 for shiplap lumbar. Which is a big difference hence why this is sometimes considered.

Not to mention the results are pretty immediate and the project can be completed in as little as a couple of hours.

Now the beginner friendly lands in a grey zone.

Mortified first 3 attempts

This is somewhat beginner friendly however ends up being pretty error prone. I was aware to be conscious of having steady hands which was no issue for me but may be for others. Something that was difficult to grasp was the angle to place the tip when your straightedge ends and you start the next section. This small difference in angle can cause a permanent mark on your wall which may force you to make your lines thicker than anticipated to make up for the error.

Real life view of Sharpie Shiplap

I also found that in this circumstance, the magic eraser helped but it really required significant elbow grease which is a lot of effort if you happen to screw up multiple times. AND it does not remove it all the way... unless you want to try one small spot for 25 minutes.. then by all means.. maybe it does but I was not patient enough for that.

Lastly, something that really shocked me... was the amount of coats that it required to conceal the sharpie shiplap. IT TOOK ME 5 COATS OF PRIMER TO CONCEAL A SMALL PHRASE..

5. Watch the video below for further explanation.

This was just a bit shocking to me especially because I did use the magic eraser to remove as much of the Sharpie that I though was sufficient.

Nevertheless, here are the final results.

But thats basically it. Totally your call on this! Let me know if there are any questions I can help with!

As always feel free to ask any questions or your own personal experience. And if you have anything you've been debating as a DIY that you would like me to review, send it my way!

Until next time.

XOXO - Jocelyn