Making New Wood Look Old {Hester Way}

Everybody wants the reclaimed barn wood look, but lets face it: who has the money to buy it? Now that it is the Bee's knees, it's expensive! On top of being expensive it isn't the safest type of wood to use in your little one's bedrooms and playrooms, so i figured out a way to make new wood look old. Yes it can be done. And it can be done cheaply. Nothing better than that!

First you need to understand the basics of staining, and it really is easy. Here is my video of how to stain a basic board. My son Winston wanted to help :)

Now that you have the basics down there are so many fun ways to make new wood look reclaimed. 

The great thing about reclaimed wood is that every piece is different, which makes our job even easier. 

Steps to reclaimed looking wood:

1. Sand the edges of the wood to make the boards look worn. I took this step a little further and sanded my edges uneven making them look even more worn. You can do this by applying different amounts of pressure along the sides. 

2. Grab your distress tool and go to town.  Pick any tool that has the ability to leave a mark on the wood. I personally like the marks that large screws leave on the board, but you can use metal picks, hammers, or barbwire. 

I placed a handful of large screws in a plastic bag and hit the bag against my boards several times until i got the look i was looking for. This part is both easy and a great stress reliever :)

3. Stain the board

4. Wipe away the excess stain with an old Cotton cloth

What you will need to get the reclaimed look:

• Interior Wood Stain (a little goes a long way) 
• Old or cheap paint brush 
• Plastic gloves (staining gets very messy)
• Old cotton cloth
• Sander 
• Your object of choice to distress (bag or screws, hammer, barbwire, chicken wire, metal picks etc.)

I used these basic steps to make my son's reclaimed wood wall in his bedroom. Here is the picture of my reclaimed wood wall inspiration. I love how the stained wood plays off the painted boards. To make every board have it's own personality was fun and it allowed me to play around with ideas for future projects. 

To get the really old reclaimed wood look i added 2 parts water to my bowl of stain. This dulled down the color of the stain and gave the board a whitewashed look. I personally love the way this turned out with my darker stain! 

The important thing I learned when working with stain is to not be afraid to play around. Play with colors. It never hurts to mix two stain colors that you like to get the perfect tone. Reclaimed is never perfect so don't strive for perfection. The less perfect it is, the better it is going to look. 

Reclaimed wood can look good in any room in your home. How are you going to use your faux reclaimed wood? 

Happy Staining!

Kasha