DIY Farmhouse-Style Signs

jlhelms92
Mar 4, 2017
2 min read

Check out this pile of lumber - our fence contractor asked if we wanted him to haul off the scrap. Nope, we sure don't, this girl likes to craft. One of the first things I used the wood for was my DIY farmhouse signs!

Joanna Gaines is my interior designer idol! She's the reason I have an obsession with the vintage farmhouse style. Deep down though, I've always enjoyed antique signs, it's probably the graphic designer in me. While I love those old vintage signs, and it would be awesome to own a few, I can't shell out that kind of money right now. What's the next best option? DIY signs: signs that say and look exactly what you want it to.

Step 1: Sand the board

Not pictured, but my first step was sanding the piece of wood. I don't recommend going over board with this. I only sanded it enough that the wood wasn't furry! Technical terms... I wanted the grain and knots to still be there when I went distress it.

Step 2: Stain then Paint

Also not pictured, but I made my own homemade stain and coated the piece of wood. After that had a chance to dry, I then painted the entire board white with watered down acrylic paint.

Step 3: Cut out and Trace Lettering

I printed out the wording I wanted in the size I needed. There are other, probably better, ways of transferring words and phrases but for this simple block font, I just cut out the letters and traced them onto the board. You can save ink by just creating an outline of the letters.

Step 4: Fill in the letters

Next I filled in my letter outlines with black acrylic paint.

Step 5: Distress the Paint

To give the sign an antique distressed look, I didn't let the paint dry for more than an hour or so before taking sandpaper and lightly rubbing it over sections. On signs with a darker stain underneath the white, sanding the board will make that stain pop. A good technique is to make it pop around the edges of the sign.

It's as easy as that! There are all sorts of ways to distress wood/paint but this was the first technique I learned and definitely one of the simplest! Here's another sign I made below. The first picture was before I distressed the lettering. You can see that I already used the technique on the board itself. The bottom picture is the end result! I love that this DIY project cost me NOTHING to make! Feel free to share any techniques you've learned!