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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Old shutters to a living room partition-a tutorial

Before...some really ugly and dirty shutters I bought on Criag's list for cheap


After...a lovely partition (by the way...have you priced out partitions? One like this would cost a couple hundred bucks easy. This one cost me around $30)



This is Ashley's faux aging technique, here's what you need:
-Plain white paint
-Dark walnut wood stain (a little bit goes a long way)
-Polyurethane glaze
-Sand paper
-Hinges
-Sponge
-Paintbrush

Step 1:
Paint the surface plain white. A flat type of paint is best, but I used a semi gloss for this project and it worked just fine. I would stay away from high gloss for best results. Let the paint dry completely.
Step 2:
Sand all the edges and any other spots that you want to look aged (the spots you sand will show up very dark brown when you are all done). Note: make sure you sand all the way down to the wood or it won't work)


Here's a close up of the sanding:


Step 3:
Using a damp sponge wipe the dark walnut stain on all surfaces. The areas that you sanded all the way to the wood will stain very dark brown and everything else will be an earthy brown color. Allow the stain to dry. Note: even when the stain is "dry" it will still have a tacky feeling, that is alright.

Step 4:
Paint a polyurethane glaze over the entire surface. This will seal in the tackiness of the stain and make everything more durable. Again I suggest a flat glaze as opposed to a gloss but either one would work fine. Let it dry.

Step 5:
Connect everything with hinges, stand it up and you are done!



The DIY Show Off

6 comments:

  1. These look gorgeous! I'm a little curious if there's a whole mess of junk hiding behind them though! lol

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  2. Ooh! I love it... Now I need to keep an eye out for shutters when I go thrifting.

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  3. Awesome! Craigslist, you say? :) I'm looking for a partition and you're right, those things aren't cheap! This one is so great anyway, because of the distressing! I love it.

    I'm having a Target giveaway on my blog right now. I'd love it if you'd stop by! alittleknickknack.blogspot.com

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  4. I did this in my living room also...got mine from the Habitat store. It hides the XBox Rock Band drums. :-)

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  5. Great post! Thank you so much for this tutorial! I have tons of shutters (OK not tons but for 12 windows) on my attic. Now I know exactly what to do with them.

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  6. Totally adore this....shutters look so beautiful in house.

    window shutters clayton, ca

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