DIY Barn Wood – HAWTHORNE AND MAIN

I love barn wood….. I might even be a little obsessed….

There is evidence of it here and here and here…..

Not everyone has a dad that loves to tear down old buildings and who lets his daughter have free rein by taking as much as she wants…..

Today I am going to show you this awesome way to make your own barn wood….

I picked up this picture frame from the Restore a few months ago. You can see how I achieved this distressed worn look over here.

I really wanted to add some wood to the inside of this frame and was at a loss of what type of wood to use.Real…. I am talking the really old barn wood is actually one inch think, very heavy…..

I wanted something that would still give me the barn wood vibe but not weight a gazillion pounds.

I literally went to home depot and started to walk up and down the isles in the lumber section.

I swear the clouds parted and the angles were singing as soon as I saw these boards!!

This wonderful wood is called bender board. It is typically used in gardening buuuuuttttt……..

It makes the perfect barn wood…… It is only about 3/8″ thick so it is really lightweight.

To get started, I cut all of my pieces to size and gave them a quick 20 second sand, only on one side.

The stain I used for this project is a wood stain by Minwax with a white tint base. The color I got was called slate. This is a water based stain, which means it is a lot like paint.

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After I got done sanding the boards I tested the stain on a scrap piece of board and realized that it was a little bit too dark for the look I was going for. I ended up mixing 50/50 stain and water.

This really made a big difference and the color was exactly what I was looking for. I used a brush and brushed on the stain to all of the boards.

I let the stain dry over night. The next day, I used some of my favorite Annie Sloan, Pure White Chalk Paint to add a white wash.

To make the white wash I added about 1-2 Tablespoon of paint to 1 cup of water. It really doesn’t take that much paint. I brushed each board with the white wash and then I took a paper towel and wiped off some. The more paint you leave on the more white washed it looks.

Here is a picture to give you an idea of the difference between stain only and adding the white wash.

I needed to rip one of my boards so that it would fit nicely in my frame. I ended up just using my jig saw. You can tell it isn’t perfect. I put this piece of wood on the very bottom of the picture frame and you cannot tell that it isn’t completely straight.

Now it is time to assemble it all together. I was able to find a piece of cardboard to glue to the inside of my frame. I decided to do this because I felt like the wood needed a little bit extra support. I just used my hand dandy E6000 glue.

If your frame does not have a lip like mine does, you can just glue the card board to the back of the frame.

Once I glued the card board down I added the finished wood pieces using the same glue.

I didn’t have enough wood clamps so I found the

next best thing…..books. And we have no shortage of them….

Wood does expand and contract. I would recommend spacing out the boards a little bit to account for this.

I let the glue dry for a couple of days and it was done!

Now my mantle is looking cute and I love how it turned out! If you want to see how I distressed the picture frame you can check out that post over here.

Original article and pictures take http://www.hawthorneandmain.com/2014/09/diy-barn-wood.html site


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