Faux Barnwood Tutorial

 Today I’m sharing my latest build with you.

It’s free and it’s pretty and I made it myself, 3 of my favorite things. 🙂

If you don’t happen to have a gigantic pile of scrap wood in your garage (actually, this is one of three piles) you might need to spend $20 or so.

I’m super excited about this project for several reasons:
1. It was free
2. I made it from scratch, as in this time I cut the wood this time and everything. All. by. myself.
3. I figured out how to get it to look like aged barn wood, which I happen to think is beautiful and also sort of hides my mistakes (of which there are plenty, mostly because I cut everything with the jigsaw, a.k.a the only saw I’m not scared of.)

I used this plan from Ana White, but I added an extra divider and turned it upside down.

Now on to how to get cheap pine to look like aged barn wood…

Step 1: Torch it. I used a charcoal grill lighter because I needed to be able to get into some tight spots. I guess you could just add streaks of black paint, but where’s the fun in that?

Step 2: Paint it. I made a wash of 3 parts gray acrylic paint, 1 part baby blue, and 4 parts water. Then I brushed it over the entire piece.

Step 3: Unpaint it. I used wet paper towels and rubbed off as much of the blue/gray as I could just as the paint was almost dry.

Step 4: Paint it again. I made another wash out of 1 part soft black (almost purple) and 1 part water. I rubbed that into the piece with more paper towels.

Just keep adding and taking off paint until you get the look you want. Here’s a close-up.

I wasn’t sure Hubby was going to be a big fan. He sort of hates when I take new stuff and try to make it look old and beat up. I happen to love it. But, actually, he came home and said, “Wow. That’s a really cool finish.” Winning.

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