a gigantic shabby chic wall

well, this was interesting.

we built a huge double-sided wood wall. and when i say huge, i mean HUGE. my buddy holding the wall on the right is 6’6″.

this is a 12′ x 8′ wall made of planked wood on both sides. probably 350 lbs. yowza. and the fabrication all went down in my garage while neighbor kids skateboarded and biked all around the driveway.

my husband is so patient and loving…poor guy was displaced from his garage parking…now that’s love.

i learned a lot from painting the first side of this wall.  i tried all sorts of different wood painting techniques. you can see the vaseline technique below, which is intended to block the paint from adhering.

see how the paint pulls away from the stain where the vaseline was?  mmmm hmmmm…

 

i dragged rags, blotted rags, sanded with a mouse sander, hand sanded, and tried a zillion techniques. then decided all that was way too much work! 

so on the back side of this wall, i just painted very sloppily with varying thicknesses of white over the underlying varied colors i initially painted. btw, my carpenter buddy said that it was much easier to cut and arrange the pieces after i’d painted the raw wood. he didn’t have to think as much because the various colors made it easier for him to stagger.

 

then i took my belt sander to it. people, it wasn’t pretty. i wore skateboarding knee pads, a respirator, ear protectors, and goggles. paint in my hair? always.

i’m sure my neighbors are wondering how they can kick me off the island. meesh…the tribe has spoken.

we had metal stands fabricated so that the wall can stand on its own…. 

 

 

 

…but we also added heavy duty eye hook bolts at the top. we do live in earthquake country, after all!

this was an interesting project that we built for a friend. we’ll be installing a similar wall at our new workshop, but will using a much lighter wood product.

this shabby chic look is super hip. it’s rustic, distressed, weathered.

what do you think?!