Wood Veneer Hub’s Slat Panels Are an Easy Home Office Upgrade

As someone who has painted the walls in nearly every apartment I’ve lived in my entire adult life, I’d like to say that painting sucks. Over the years, I’ve learned tricks to get the job done faster (I even own a set of painting tools!), but it’s still a long and annoying process that can take more time than you expect.

Last year, I had the privilege of becoming a homeowner, and naturally, the great algorithm took notice and started pushing all kinds of home improvement projects, products, and services to my Instagram. (Did you know you can replace your roof for free? Yes, that sounds too good to be true.) One of them did catch my eye, though—wood veneer hub. I see ad after ad scrolling through my feed showing home setups with cute wood slat walls. This is exactly my aesthetic.

The company promised easy installation—a room makeover that wouldn’t take an entire day to paint, and it mostly delivered. As WIRED’s resident home office product tester, I decided to give these panels a try my office. i have already done standing desk, office chair, webcamdesk lamps, and even filing cabinets, but I’ve never tested anything that would completely change the look of my space.

Installation is quite simple

The Wood Veneer Hub’s slatted panels are composed of medium-density fiber slats attached to a recycled felt material with acoustical properties. Each box has two slats, and each box has about nine slats – you’ll need to measure the walls (or ceiling!) to find the dimensions you need. You can choose between no veneer or an oiled veneer option, I recommend the latter – it costs a little more but saves you the hassle of applying veneer and protects the wood.

I decided to try them on one wall in my home office as an accent wall. It took about 13 Slatpanels (I received a box of 7, which meant I only had one spare Slatpanel left), and I screwed them into the studs. You could mount them on top of the base plate, but I thought it looked better without the base plate, so I removed it. There is a tiny gap between the panel and the floor, but it’s hard to notice. This also means I don’t have to cut panels (except for sockets and light switches).

Here’s the tricky part – cutting the holes. I needed to cut a few holes for outlets, light switches, and light fixtures. If you have a chainsaw, you’re already in a much better situation than I was. I have a simple handsaw with no workbench, so it’s hard to get straight lines when sawing through pieces. I use mine Milwaukee Fastback Start by cutting through one side of the felt with a knife, which works surprisingly well. Be smarter than me and use a long level or ruler and tape it to the panel to keep these lines straight. Thankfully, you have to look closely to see how jagged my hole is, or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.