How to Distress Wood to get Farmhouse Look

     The “farmhouse” look has become popular in home decor and fits in well with the Americana style that I love. Here is the link to a video that I made awhile back for my Instagram account on how I get the white, aged, distressed farmhouse look. In the video, I use two pieces that I made using this technique. One with a barn star that I made and one with a card modpodged to the base.  I commonly pick up used cutting boards for cheap at the Goodwill and other thrift stores and use them as a base for my pieces. On the video I show a barn star that I made with my Sizzix but you can buy them on Amazon or sometimes Hobby Lobby. 

DIY Farmhouse Distressed Look

DIY Red Truck Decor

 

I love making these kinds of crafts and while I normally do sell them, this one in particular was made for a friend. I go to thrift stores at least once a week looking for things to use as a base for my crafts. Sometimes it is a cutting board, a pan, a saw, this time it was a round wooden candle holder. As soon as I saw it, I knew what I wanted to do with it. Hopefully it inspires you! 

Distressed DIY Coat Rack

I love how this turned out! We do not have a coat closet in our new home so I decided to make a coat rack. I took a cabinet door I found at a Habitat for Humanity Restore. First, I put the hardware on the back for hanging it up. Then I cleaned it and applied sander/deglosser according to the instructions. I then spray painted it with a couple coats of Rustoleum spray paint in the color “seaside”. I then used sandpaper to distress the painted finish in certain areas. Then using a paintbrush I applied stain to the entire surface after which I wiped it down with a rag leaving stain in the crevices. I did the stain process a couple times. At the end I applied a polyurethane finish. I got the instructions for distressing furniture from this link. https://www.addicted2decorating.com/diy-project-accent-furniture-how-to-paint-distress-and-antique-a-piece-of-furniture I then glued the cross hooks on that I bought at Hobby Lobby. Wanting a very strong adhesive, I used Gorilla glue to do this but you have to be really careful with Gorilla glue. It expands so use it sparingly, otherwise it might overflow around the edges. I left the original door handle on the bottom right to hang our dog leash from.

DIY Jewelry storage / display

I recently made a magazine rack from cutting an old slatted closet door in half. I picked up the door at our local Habitat Re-Store for $7.00. So that left me with the other half of the door to do something with. Below is a picture of before and after I cut the door. For some time now I had been trying to figure out how to store some of my jewelry and had scoured Pinterest but had not really found something I thought would work for me.  Staring at the other half of the closet door I came up with this idea. I still need to get it mounted on the wall and need to buy a few more S hooks for more necklaces and earings but having gotten it finished I was so excited to share it on my blog I did not want to wait. If you read my post on the magazine rack this one will look remarkable similar since up until the finishing touches it is made the same.

 I cut out every other slat. Now ideally it would be nice to use a Dremel Multi-Max with the right attachment to cut the slats flush with the sides and with a little sanding and painting you would never know the other slats were there in the first place (this is shown here on the site I got the idea for the magazine rack http://www.myrepurposedlife.net/2011/10/repurposed-shutter-magazine-rack.html). However I do not have that tool and am trying to do this project on the cheap so was not going to go out and buy it either. So I just used a Black and Decker HandiSaw (as shown in the following picture of my hubby), and just cut it the best I could without nicking the surrounding slats and removed the pieces.

 Then I sanded it just enough to score it up a bit. I also used wood puddy to fill in the cutout from where the hinges were. You don't have to do this, I think leaving it there kind of adds to the whole re-purposed look but I had the puddy on hand and figured why not.

I then proceeded to primer it. I already had the primer on hand from when the house was being worked on. I put two coats of primer on it because the wood was so dark and I thought it would be easier to put multiple layers of primer than multiple layers of paint. This is a picture of the magazine rack primered.

 Then I painted it and varnished it. The paint I bought from the Lowe's discount rack (you know the paint that people have mixed but then don't buy). From the choices available this seemed like the best option. The varnish I had from previous projects. The ornamental wood molding I also bought at Lowes and spray painted purple using paint I had on hand from another project. The hooks are just standard S hooks I picked up at the local hardware store and also spray painted purple.

 Hope you enjoy and are inspired to re-purpose something! My next project I have in the works that both my hubby and I are working on is making a coffee table using re-purposed materials. I will share when we have it finished!