This post will show you how to make new wood look old and weathered.
Weathered wooden crates can be used for so many things. It’s actually easy and inexpensive to transform new crates into weathered crates.
I recently grabbed a few of these crates at Walmart to use on a graduation table display; however, the unfinished look did not go well with my theme. In a couple of hours with just a few supplies (under $2), my new crates looked old.
Supplies I used:
- Crates (here is a link to great priced unfinished crates)
- Acrylic paints – black, white and brown (about 50 cents each from Walmart)
- Paintbrush
- Bowl to use for paint
- Sock or cloth to wipe paint off
Prepare paint for the first coat.
Put a generous amount of black acrylic paint into your painting bowl.
Add a little bit of white paint to lighten up the black color.
Stir the black and white paints together.
Add a generous amount of water to the paint mixture. I didn’t measure my water, but added about a cup of water. Stir to mix the water and paint.
Paint a light coat of the paint mixture on one side of the crate. Be sure to paint between the slats.
Using a sock or cloth, wipe off the paint, leaving only a light coat of the paint.
Continue to paint and wipe off each side of the crate.
The photo below shows you what my crate looked like after one coat of the black paint mixture.
Prepare the brown paint mixture.
I used the color of brown shown below.
Pour the brown paint into the bowl.
Add water and stir.
Apply the brown paint to the crate.
Wipe off the brown paint mixture.
Wipe off the paint mixture. Here I painted and wiped the two slats on the left so that you could see the difference in color once the brown color was applied.
Continue painting and wiping it off, one side at a time.
Here is another example that shows the color variance. The two slats on the top have the brown paint mixture applied and wiped off.
And that’s it.
My paints were only 50 cents each, so transforming these new crates into old crates was very inexpensive and easy. Hopefully this post will help you make new wood look old.
I also captured this project on video and have linked it below for your easy reference.
