DIY Farmhouse Hood Vent

A hood vent can easily become the focal point of the kitchen. I knew that when I pictured our kitchen in my mind that I wanted something simple but that drew your eye and had that farmhouse flair. I searched and searched for something pre-built that would work for what I wanted and that didn’t cost a small fortune. Unfortunately I had no so luck, everything I found that fit into my criteria or that caught my eye was just so stinkin’ expensive! So I convinced the hubs that it was something we would need to build ourselves. He half laughed at me if I remember correctly when I showed him all of the hood vents I had been busy pinning. After trying to convince him for a while that some of the more elaborate ones wouldn’t be, “that hard”, I decided maybe I should go even simpler. Here’s some of the inspo pics I had pinned originally, you can check them out on my Pinterest page to get the original sources.

I really loved the triangular shape that these had but realized that most of them have open shelving next to them or if they have cabinets next to them there is some space for the hood vent to stand alone. We did not leave room for this when we were hanging our cabinets so I felt like it wouldn’t look quite right. Not to mention it would be a more difficult process to DIY and I wasn’t sure we were ready for it. So I started searching for more rectangular hood vents. I had a hard time finding something that really caught my eye until I saw this pin from tenjuneblog.com.

How gorgeous is that?! I instantly fell in love and decided that I wanted our hood vent to be similar. I showed it to the hubs and to my surprise he actually felt like it was something that we could DIY- even without a tutorial! So here it is- our tutorial!

We purchased a vent insert and liner from Amazon. We had gone back and forth on purchasing just a regular under mount vent and building the hood around it but ultimately felt like we needed to make it all built in together the way it should be- “the professional way”, according to hubs! We purchased this one here.

We started by attaching the liner to the cabinets. We used wooden shims to help create a tight fit as the metal is pretty flexible. Then we placed 2×2’s on each side and attached them to the wall. This was just to give us something to build the sides off of. They did not attach to the liner.

Then we placed the actual vent into the liner. Just follow the install instructions for this part. After that we attached 2×4’s on the front side of the vent to the vent on the bottom and the ceiling. We pre-drilled the holes in the 2×4’s and then in the ceiling with drywall anchors. We wanted these to really hold the weight of the vent but also the hood structure as well.

As you can see we left space on each side between the boards and the cabinets- this was so that we could take the sides of the hood all the way around. Next up was the “mantle” piece along the bottom of the vent. We used 2×6’s for this. Before putting them up we roughed them up and used our custom weathered stain to get the look we wanted. I’ll be posting about this soon! Then we mitered the edges so it would be seamless all the way around. We attached the three pieces together with a finishing nail gun and then screwed it to the vent sleeve from the back side.

For the shiplap pieces we decided to go with the MDF pre-made shiplap. This way each piece would fit together and would be nice and straight. We mitered the edges of the shiplap pieces as well so they would be seamless. We added an extra piece of wood to each side to help fill in the space. This made for a really snug fit for the shiplap pieces going back toward the wall.

Because our ceiling in our kitchen is vaulted we had to figure out the ceiling angles for each shiplap piece toward the top. Luckily for us Jason’s grandpa was in town to help and his dad came to help as well! So when I say, “we”,  I really mean, “them”- with me interjecting what I wanted on the side! That’s how typical DIY projects go around here!! It’s the hubs and his dad doing all the hard work while I tell them what to do!

We still need to add the crown molding throughout our whole kitchen. I really think that will help finish off the way it looks but for now this works and I’m a very happy girl! Hope you enjoyed! Leave a comment if you decide to try it out yourself!