Ship lap is a style that goes with the farmhouse look, it adds horizontal lines that have a visual effect of widening a room. I recently used it in a bathroom reno where the client really liked the farmhouse style but actual shiplap was no where to be found in our neck of the woods (Vancouver Island BC) besides which in a small bathroom the 6" boards would be too many lines. I wanted wider boards and found a pine laminate board at Home Depot, they are labeled as 1 x 12 but they are only 5/8" thick and 11 1/4" wide. They worked beautifully placing the 1/8" apart using spacers. It's not just a fad, it's a style and it's a design tool, the bathroom looks so much bigger now with the horizontal lines running along two joining walls.
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Shiplap barn doors
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