Turn New Wood Into Aged Wood

You know the kind of people who live on a farm and seem to have old windows, aged wood and all the goodness right at their fingertips? Yah, me neither. Finding vintage or antique pieces is hard work. Glen and I build rustic furniture for a living and we’ve had clients request us to build their furniture out of aged wood or make it look like aged wood. Living in a really humid climate we do not have the best luck with old wood. It normally is cracked and in pretty bad shape. So we came up with an easy way last year to make new wood look like it has been aged for decades. It literally takes under 30 minutes and it’s kind of fun.

What You Will Need To Turn Your New Wood Into Aged Wood

 

-Orbital Hand Sander

-Big Chain

-Crow Bar

You want to take your crow bar and just hit the table, as many times as you want to make it beat up. You can also drag it along the table with the tip to scratch the table. Then take your chain, ours is SUPER old as you can tell and just hit the table.

It was so hilarious as my daughter was in her jumper watching me do this and she was clapping the entire time.

I put a lot of dents & scratches in my table top as we love true looking rustic furniture. I wanted it to look extra aged.

A bit of background on this table, it was made for a client last winter. We had a huge snow storm over a week span and this table expanded so badly once the client got it, so it was returned. A bit of wood filler, screws and sanding did the trick and we thought rather than throw it out, we would keep it for ourselves!

I’m so excited for this table. I’ve wanted a truss table since we started our business. But they take a long time to make. So I carved out time on the weekend to spend time sanding this table top down to the bare wood and filling the gaps. It looks as good as new and was so worth it!

Alright, step 2. Once you’re done beating your table. I always like to do a light sand with 120 grit sand paper. You need a orbital sander for this step. If you do not have one, you can get a cheap one for under 40 dollars, see here.

Run it over the table and make sure you do the entire top. Since we beat up the table top there will be rough wood exposed, so by doing a light sand, it evens everything out. Excuse my ugly sander. I swear it’s only six months old. We use our tools hard, and use them for 8-12 hours a day.

Your table should look like this prior to staining. I beat ours up quite a bit to make it look extra aged.

Now it’s staining time! I did a quick little video if you have never stained before. It’s super easy and really, you can stain however you want. I’m using a oil based stain from Minwax. Minwax is our go-to stain choice. Goes on so nice and the quality of the color is way nicer than other brands we’ve tried.

Don’t judge my video, I seriously need to take a class in being on film. Glen was laughing through the video. “Jess, aren’t you going to say goodbye or good luck or anything?” No one said I was talented at everything!

Here’s the link

Here’s how your table top will look once it’s done being stained & the varnish is on ( drying )

It’s sooooo pretty, right?! The table has been drying downstairs all weekend and so I’m pretty antsy to get it upstairs. Mr.Muscle Man is bringing it upstairs as I speak. So I’m pretty excited to show you all how it turned out. This is literally one of my favourite DIY’s as it’s so easy and you can’t go wrong. Every piece is unique. You can do this method on anything. I’ve done it on a bath caddy, coffee tables etc.

Here’s the finished product. My Dining room is really tight & my lens is even tighter, so the photographs are all close-up, but you can see how amazing the dings & scratches look.

 

 

Hope you enjoyed this easy DIY on how to age new wood & you’re having a wonderful tuesday afternoon. I know it’s been a bit of a gong show for us, as per usual!

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