Home » 31 Board and Batten Vinyl Siding Ideas

31 Board and Batten Vinyl Siding Ideas

Traditional homes and suburban ranch houses were often made of wood with clapboard siding. Over time, the wood got replaced with metal, plastic, or composite alternatives. Vinyl siding is particularly popular because it’s low-maintenance, weather-resistant, and cheap.

Board and batten siding mixes wide and narrow planks. The thinner ones (battens) hide the joints between the bigger planks (boards). It’s sometimes called barn siding because it was so common in farmhouse barns. So let’s look at some top board and batten vinyl siding ideas.

1. Simply Grey

Simply Grey

In board and batten vinyl siding, the batten is functional. It’s thinner than the other vinyl panels and projects outwards, a bit like thin vertical Dutch Lap siding. On this home, the vertical barn siding on the dormer makes the house look taller. This can be a visual comfort if you’re feeling claustrophobic in that attic. And that pale grey brightens the house exterior.

 

2. Modern Farmhouse

Modern Farmhouse
Credit: ramsey_modern_farmhous

Ranch houses favor horizontal siding because it broadens the horizon of your home. That sideways cladding makes the house seem larger, longer, and more open. Similarly, barn siding makes your silo seems taller and loftier. So if you want this effect on a two-story modern farmhouse, consider using board and batten vinyl siding in a pale off-white tone.

 

3. Broken Lines

Broken Lines

Barnyard siding often has continuous vertical lines, whether the cladding is wood or vinyl. But that’s because barns had open floor plans and high ceilings, allowing you to drive tractors through the doors and stack massive bales of hay. When you use that board and batten vinyl siding in a modern home, try dividing lines to separate the walls and the gables.

 

4. Gorgeous and Grainy

Gorgeous and Grainy

The styling of board and batten siding is quite simple. So if you want it to shine, you’ll need to play with the color and grain. While this siding is a light white t0 beige tone, you won’t have to worry about it getting dirty because you can easily clean it with a garden hose. But what really catches your eye is the realistic wood grain and texture on these plastic planks.

 

5. Pretty GP

Pretty GP

Yes, beautiful doctors are a blessing to patients everywhere. But the pretty GP we’re referring to here is Georgia-Pacific vinyl. You can order it in almost twenty tones ranging from mist to teak to pewter. The panels are 0.48 inches thick with 5.5-inch boards and 1.5-inch battens. The vinyl cladding carries a lifetime warranty that’s transferable if you ever sell the house.

 

6. Wide White Trim

Wide White Trim
Credit: cbmurrayconstruction

Board and batten vinyl siding can exaggerate the visual height of your home. So if you live at the end of a street or the top of a hill and you want to tower over the neighbors, consider vertical cladding. But depending on how you install your siding, it could also make the home look squat. This front porch has wide battens and elongated windows that dwarf the house.

 

7. Make it Minty

Make it Minty

Colour plays a big role in the popularity of board and batten vinyl siding. Vinyl comes in thousands of hues, and unlike wood, you won’t need to stain or repaint it. Many vinyl panels even come with built-in UV coats to retain that exact shade. For this house, mint-colored cladding highlights the bold red brick that covers the lower section of the exterior walls.

 

8. Perfectly Pitched

Perfectly Pitched

It’s easy to add stories to pitched houses because the gable offers additional construction space. You can quickly convert that gable into one or more dormers, either for an attic bedroom, bathroom, or storage. In the home, the lower sections of the house have horizontal cladding. But the upper dormer has board and batten vinyl siding in the same shade of grey.

 

9. Decorative Details

Decorative Details

A lot of us opt for tame colors in our board and batten vinyl siding. Especially for the upper floors of a multi-story home – you don’t want your house too distinct from a distance since that may attract unwanted visitors. But if you feel that beige tone is too dull, you can add visual excitement with gable detail and decorative brackets. Sash windows are good too.

 

10. Tints and Tones

Tints and Tones
Credit: mike.sucharda

The curb appeal on this home is unmatched. Those cedar steps and pillars are beautiful and attention-grabbing. They also give the ground floor a sunny tint that’s warm and welcoming. But it’s wood, so it will need a lot of maintenance. The upper floor is a bit more practical, with board and batten vinyl siding. It’s tinted bright blue to match the cloudless sky above it.

 

11. Vertical Accents

Vertical Accents

While most vertical cladding has boards and battens, you’ll sometimes see planks side by side with nothing hiding the seams. Other times, you may see vertical beaded siding or planks with grooves between them. So if you only want a little traditional board and batten vinyl siding, consider using it as an accent wall amid textured cedar shakes and stone siding.

 

12. Suitable Shapely

Suitable Shapely

Horror movies are often shot in simulated attics. But in modern homes, the attic doesn’t have to be creepy or cluttered. With the right décor, your attic can become a stylish, liveable space. For this house, a half-circle window is cut into the gable, which offers ventilation and visual appeal. The dormer is clad in broad board and batten vinyl siding aka vertical lap siding.

 

13. Dividing Lines

Dividing Lines

This house exterior is all about neutrals. It mixes subtle browns and greys in various textures. The upper part of the house is cedar shake. The lower part is stone. In between, a narrow swathe of board and batten vinyl siding marks the garage. The decorative gable brackets have craftsman styling in nude woodsy tones (though faux wood may be safer).

 

14. Matte Magic

Matte Magic
Credit: beyond_home_sales

When you add gloss or shine to any item, it might end up looking fake because the sheen says on the surface. So if you’re working with board and batten vinyl siding and you’re worried about it looking cheap, opt for matte shades. This black and grey vinyl looks dull – which could be a bad thing – but in this case, the matte surface looks closer to stained wood. Nice!

 

15. Skyward Bound

Skyward Bound

Barns often have a deep pitch in their roofing. And even on modern barnyard homes, the side view can look large and looming. Vertical siding is popular here, especially if the wall has no windows. But even if it does – as seen here – the board and batten vinyl siding can be pleasantly simple. Plus, when you hose down the cladding, you won’t get unsightly side drips.

 

16. Double Dipping

Double Dipping

If the pitch of your roof is deep and wide enough, you can expand your living space with double or even triple dormers. This house has overlapping twin gables that make you think you’re seeing double. It’s a pretty visual illusion that makes the house look and feel bigger. And to exaggerate the effect, the rear dormer has off-white board and batten vinyl siding.

 

17. Hop, Skip, and Clad

Hop, Skip, and Clad

Jigsaw puzzles appeal to people who enjoy pattern-making and order. So this jigsaw house may impress a buyer like that. Every exterior surface has a different texture from its adjacent wall. Clapboard siding, vertical siding, and stone siding flank each other beautifully. The vertical and horizontal siding is the same shade of grey, but the clapboard is half as narrow.

 

18. Beaded Boards and Battens

Beaded Boards and Battens
Credit: beyond_home_sales

Some kinds of board and batten vinyl siding seem … seamless, pun intended. The plastic is so well molded and painted that you can’t tell where the joints are, even with the obvious projections. But on this beaded style, you can see decorative ‘grooves’ between each board and batten. Those ‘grooves’ are called beads and they create a gorgeous shadowy relief effect.

 

19. Warehouse Sheikh

Warehouse Sheikh

The beauty of modern construction is you can mix and match anything. Take this barn for example. You can tell it’s a storage facility because of its broad entryway and its board and batten siding. But its wide base and rounded roof suggest it’s more of a private airplane hangar. Of course, there’s no reason it can’t be both – that wagon can always tug a biplane!

 

20. Right Tones and Angles

Right Tones and Angles

Here’s another example of mixing up alternating walls. But in this case, it’s mainly lines and colors being mingled. The exterior cladding on this house swaps vertical and horizontal siding in shades of pine green, grey, and tan. The lower floor is clapboard and the upper floor has green board and batten vinyl siding. This vertical pattern is echoed in the vinyl fence.

 

21. Dark Crested Style

Dark Crested Style

Style Crest Inc. is known for its selection of board and batten vinyl siding options. Their dark series is particularly popular. So if you’re tired of dull neutrals and tame pastels, try one of these new ones. They range from Heritage Red to Hampton Blue and Mountain Pine. And if you can’t recall those pretty-sounding, the shades are numbered so they’re easier to identify.

 

22. Craftsman Couture

Craftsman Couture

Craftsman roofs have visible trusses and exposed eaves. And if you like that rustic look, you mix authentic wooden pieces into your exteriors. If you don’t want the fuss of maintaining timber, get faux-wood for those details too. Here, the jungle green board and batten vinyl siding is paired with wood-like shutters and light brown stone that aptly match the eaves.

 

23. Commercial Boards and Battens

Commercial Boards and Battens
Credit: avironpartners

Why don’t more office buildings and apartments have vertical siding? Maybe it’s too expensive to get those long planks. But with board and batten vinyl siding, you can use shorter panels with horizontal dividers between stories. And the added advantage of vertical vinyl is the building looks taller when you view it from street level, so it seems much grander!

 

24. Slanted Roofing

Slanted Roofing

You may think horizontal siding is the best option for pitched roofs because the mixed widths will highlight the diagonal ceiling line. But vertical siding does a much better job. This three-story home has board and batten vinyl siding that gorgeously exhibits that tapered roof. The long, narrow windows and the elevated deck all heighten this glorious ‘tree-house’.

 

25. Snazzy Separation

Snazzy Separation

The thing with housing complexes is boredom. You have these identical cookie-cutter houses that are quick, affordable, and convenient, but it’s hard to show off your character. One easy way is to swap the direction of the siding. In this yard, all the structures are plain and boxy, but by using board and batten vinyl siding on some (e.g. the word shed), you can stand out.

 

26. Contemporary Crafty

Contemporary Crafty

Craftsman houses have a retro, rustic feel. But if that’s not what you’re going for, you can add a modern touch through clever color selection. In this house, the sashes on the windows have a contemporary feel, even though they’re flanked by traditional wooden shutters. And the cobalt blue tone of the board and batten vinyl siding gives the house a distinctly neo tone.

 

27. Too Real!

Too Real!

This is the kind of home you want to touch – just to be sure. Yes, every exterior on that house is plastic, from the realistic jungle green wood grain to the stone stacks on the lower half of the walls. And all those colors have protective UV-coating so it will look just as authentic in a few decades. Because it’s vinyl, installing this cladding is quicker than wood.

 

28. Endless Lines

Endless Lines

You’ll often see board and batten vinyl siding paired with cedar shakes or shingles, both on the walls and the roof. But this house uses an interesting effect. The vertical siding patterns extend to the roofing materials. That metal roof has lines that mimic the boards and battens below so the lines seem to go on uninterrupted. The lines only join at the top of the ridge.

 

29. Puzzle Pieces

Puzzle Pieces
Credit: avironpartners

If you’re sensitive to patterns, you might feel dizzy if you stare at this wall too long. But it’s a rear wall, so maybe that’s the point – to keep nosy neighbors from peeping! The high blocks have a mix of vertical and horizontal cladding plus square window sashes to maximize the mixture. The window sections have board and batten vinyl siding amid clapboard-clad walls.

 

30. On the Grain

On the Grain

Because board and batten vinyl siding comes in so many shades and tones, it sometimes helps to focus on the texture instead. This plastic siding is a regular mustard color that almost mimics unstained wood. It has an aged color but looks too new to be naturally toned. So if you want this effect, look for a vinyl brand that carefully casts its wood grain samples.

 

31. Vertical Dutch Lapping

Vertical Dutch Lapping

Technically, this isn’t a thing. But with Dutch Lap, the raised and recessed sections can be the same width, forming a grooved appearance. And you can simulate this effect with board and batten vinyl siding by opting for broader battens. From a distance, the battens won’t be visible, so the visual result is a house with evenly spaced vertical planks and fewer streaks.

What’s your favorite board and batten vinyl siding idea? Show us photos in the comments!

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