Ironwork Wall Art

After living with my DIY painted canvas on the wall of our bedroom for the last week or so, I decided it just couldn't stay there. I had worried about it being too large for the space, and it was continuing to bother me, so I took it down and hung it in River's room, where it looks a lot better.

fuzzy nap time picture of the painting in River's room

I thought about buying a smaller canvas and painting it, but then decided to see what I already had that might work. Well, to be more accurate, I was reorganizing the basement bedroom closet and found some ironwork pieces that I've bought at various times over the last few years from Hobby Lobby. I'd forgotten I had them, so it's nice to be able to put one of them to use finally.

I hung one scrolly one that I liked on the wall, but it looked a little plain all by itself. I forgot to take a picture of it on the wall, but here it is on the dining table.

I went to the shed and dug through my piles of wood and scraps and found just what I needed. I found a panel that used to be part of a filing cabinet or printer table years and years ago. They didn't survive one of our moves, but I was able to salvage some of the solid panels and have saved them for various projects (I used another for our Christmas tree crate).

I also found enough trim of some sort to frame the panel.

I forgot to take a picture of the front of the panel, but here's a picture of the rougher backside- 

you can see the blah and uninspiring blond wood

I lightly sanded the top of the panel so the wood would take some stain and paint and then cut the trim pieces to size. I managed to do both of these outside on a day when the temps were above freezing (barely), so I counted it as a win since it wasn't below freezing with a below-zero wind chill. A garage sure would be nice....

Anyway, the first thing I did was stain the trim and panel with Kona stain. I wasn't exactly sure where I was going with the panel, so I just decided to layer things on and see how it turned out. After the stain dried, I did two coats of chalk paint in Aubusson. I think that's the color- it was actually what was leftover from another project and was in an unmarked jar (oops!). I may have mixed another color in when I used it the first time. In any case, it's a nice dark blue.

After the paint dried I sanded it a bit, and then rubbed on a little more Kona stain, keeping to the edges for the most part. I thought the stain was a bit heavy, so I did a little more sanding till I liked how it looked. I wiped it down and gave it a coat of dark furniture wax, which gave the panel a nice smooth finish and darkened the paint a smidge.

I glued and nailed the frame pieces to the panel and each other. The last step was to use some small nails to hold the scrolly piece in place. And I was finished!

Well, almost. I put some screws in the back and attached some wire so I could hang the piece from the screws in the wall in our bedroom. I hung it on the wall and I then I was really done. Though I may need to lower it a little on the wall.

I'm really happy with how this turned out. What makes it even better is that we had everything sitting around already, so it didn't cost me anything.