Reclaimed Wood Sign Tutorial

Where the heck have I been?  Busy!  I’ve got loads of Trash to share with you, but today I am going to show you how to make this amazing Reclaimed Wood Sign FOR FREE. 

Have you noticed how lovely and simplified my blog looks?  I am SO HAPPY.  You can be this happy with your site too by clicking on over to check out Snazzy Little Things.  Jeanette was beyond amazing at how communicative she was through the whole process, price for each thing up front, she even provides you with a progress slide so you can see what has been done and what is left to be completed.  I could not be happier and I would recommend her services to anyone looking to overhaul their site or starting a site.  You can find her button in my side bar too!

PLUS I have a HUGE announcement to make that you will want to stick around to find out!  But you have to read the WHOLE Post first….

Let’s start with that sign.  We (Suffering Husband and myself + 3 children) are HUGE House of Blues Fans (mostly the food and the awesome music coming out of any of their establishments).  For some time now we thought it would be so cool to have a sign that said “House of Bergs” based on the “House of Blues” logo.

This summer I FINALLY had some time to work on it.  What started with a giant piece of wood I was going to paint the logo onto somehow morphed into using my old barn wood and fence boards.  I decided to go this route because, well, basically I LOST the Giant square piece of wood I was planning to use.  How one loses something that large?  It’s a mystery but I am good at that sort of thing.

To make one yo’self, it is pretty simple.  Here’s how it goes:  Find some scrap wood in your garage (pretend studio) for the base.  I had 2 large pieces of luon so I figured it was better to use these than buy a new piece of wood.

Select enough boards that look decent and decide how big you want your sign to be.  Lay the boards out for a “dry fit”, then turn them over and number them so you will know which order to put them back together in. O.K., seriously, this pic was super blurry and I did my best to doctor it up.  It could double as a Big Foot Sighting Photo…..

Measure the boards where they will be cut.  You can use a chop saw or a hand saw.  Chop saw will save you a lot of time.  If you don’t have one, find a friend who does.

Check out my video to see EXACTLY how to make this sign and you can see how a real pro gets it done.  Haha.

Sand the boards with a power sander, but just a little, you still want to retain the rustic look.  Don’t bother sanding the back, no one will see it.  (Just pick the bugs off like I did).

Next, lay out your back board and spread glue all over it.  Put your boards back on and weight them down.  Wait several hours and find out that none of them stuck because the backs were so dirty and rough that even Gorilla Wood Glue could not hold them.

I ended doing this backwards, I put the boards down first, face down, and positioned the back board onto it.  I secured each piece of wood to the board in about 6-8 places using 3/4″ screws.  Because I was planning to hang this, I added another piece of MDF and heavy picture wire.  You can skip this step if your sign is just going to lean.

Carefully turn the sign over and you are ready for the painting magic.  I used a projector (I have a pico pocket projector) but you can get a decent one for quite cheap now.

It’s dark because you have to make sure your room is dark to be able to see what you are tracing, unless it is a small thingy.

Use chalk to trace the image, then fill in with paint. 

I used a mixture of acrylic paints, paints I had on hand and a Paint Pen in White to make all the letters and outline pop.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t spend A LOT of time standing around admiring how the House of Bergs sign looks in my Family room.  In fact, I have to mention it to someone in my family just about every day how good it looks……

You can make this!  Just take out part of that old fence you have been meaning to replace, this will just speed up the process…..

And now for my HUGE announcement!!!

That’s it!!  See you next week with more trash and more amazing furniture makeovers.  In the meantime, check out some of my most popular posts or feel free to check out my new menu options to poke around here. I have tons of junk and junk makeovers to share and hopefully inspire you to get out there and make something over from your local Dumpster!