I was about to head to Walmart and just quickly get whatever I could, when my wife reminded me we had used shower board in the old root cellar as writable surface. So I went to Lowes, instead, for a project!
Shower board has a white glossy side and a dull brown side. It is somewhat flexible and not terribly thick. It can be cut with a utility knife and easily drilled.
To get it mounted to the wall, I needed a way to hold the weight of the sheet while I drove wood screws through pilot holes into the wall studs. A quarter inch strip of scrap pine was screwed to the wall temporarily along the bottom of the level line I had drawn on the wall at the 3 foot mark.
The shower board rested easily on the pine and made it painless to get the five screws in along the top. With the strip still in place, I put five more screws along the bottom all about 3/4" from the edge.
Then it was safe to remove the strip and start cutting the trim boards to fit. I found some nice looking polystyrene trim boards for $8 each, featuring a burled maple or mahogany print. While it could be cut with a blade, my goal was to get it done quickly and neatly, so I used the electric miter saw. The only trouble there was that the hot plastic chips kept fouling the laser guide.
The trim went up easily with my electric brad nailer. A mahogany colored marker touched up the edges and the end product is functional, not unattractive, and huge!
