How to Age Wood Tutorial {guest post from Que Linda}

Great tutorial on How to Age Wood using household products. Great DIY tutorial!How to Age Wood Tutorial


Janny is here to show us How To Age Wood with simple house hold products. Enjoy! -Linda

Hello everyone!  I’m ecstatic that I get to be a guest today and mingle with fellow Craftaholics.  Thanks Linda!  My name is Janny and you can normally find me at Que Linda or at my new Etsy Shop.  Today I’m going to show an amazing technique for giving wood a rustic, aged look. So here is how to age wood!
 how to age wood
I recently made this sign out of wood from our 20+ year old gate.  Something about the weathered wood gives the piece extra character.  There’s one problem- our old gate only has so much to give.
 I came across a tutorial for aged wood for home repair purposes at Xtreme Restoration.  It works like a charm for crafty projects too.  I recently used this technique on this sign.
 (You can’t even tell the difference from 20+ year old wood!)

How to Weather Wood

Weathering wood is super easy to do and I’ll bet you have most of the supplies lying around the house already.
You’ll need:
Grade #0000 Steel Wool
Vinegar
Mason Jar
Oh yea- a couple of tea bags too!
Wood-  (I bought a long wood plank for under $2 at the home improvement store- then I cut it into smaller pieces.)
1.)  Tear off some steel wool and put it into a mason jar.  Then pour the vinegar in to about 3/4 full or so and screw the top on.  Exact measurements aren’t important.  I’d say I used a very small handful of steel wool.
Then let it sit for at least 24 hours. 

2.)  The next day, brew tea in a separate jar and “paint” it onto the wood.  I used 2 tea bags since I was aging several pieces of wood.  (any brand of tea will work)  It’s also okay if the tea becomes cold.  Tea has tannic acid, which will react with the steel wool/vinegar mixture.
3.)  After the tea has dried, paint the steel wool/ vinegar mixture onto the wood.  You’ll see the color start to change immediately.  I’d say that it takes about 30 minutes to completely change.  The wood will smell like vinegar afterwards, but you can wash it off with water once it’s dry.
Below you can see the difference between the treated vs. untreated wood~
Different types of wood react differently to this treatment as well.  The pine (top) turns a grayish-brown while the redwood (above) eventually turns black.  You can see how it turned black on the top right (beside the pine).  For some reason the picture above makes the pine look almost grayish blue.
This picture shows a truer color to how the pine looks after the treatment.
Pretty cool, huh?
Thanks for having me as a guest today, Linda!
XOXO~Janny

 

That’s a great technique! Super easy, but looks awesome! Thanks for showing us how to age wood, Janny! Don’t forget to follow Craftaholics Anonymous on Facebook for exclusive Crafting Q&A!

Linda
Hi! I'm Linda, the craft addict behind Craftaholics Anonymous®, a craft blog. Crafting is cheaper than therapy, right? When I'm not DIYing something, I can be found taxiing around our 4 crazy kids or working out. Or shoe shopping... because you can never have too many shoes! Happy crafting! ♥
Linda
Linda

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