I felt so lucky to spy this old business sign at Flea Market Wednesday.. The wood has a absolutely gorgeous grey patina from years and years of being exposed to the outdoor elements...... Only a few speckles of black paint remained on it's surface... A faint outline of the original letters lightly graced the weathered wood...
A full 8 feet long, I wasn't sure it would fit it in my SUV...
so I walked away...
A few minutes later,
my heart fell into my stomach and I panicked...
I thought...
"Why didn't I buy that sign???"
"Hurry go back"
I told myself!!
Since I was an early shopper this past week,
(the kids were on spring break)
my sign was still there!!
The seller refused to negotiate with me (grrrr...)
but I bought the sign anyway...
Love the soft driftwood color!!!
You can see a very faint outline of the original letters
which had virtually no paint remaining....
It 's ghost appearance spelled out:
KINGS COUNTY ABSTRACT CO
A slight indent revealed that the letters were once pressed into the wood...
I knew I would want to paint the letters back onto the sign...
So I traced each letter's outline back onto the wood
with a regular lead pencil...
This gave me a foundation outline to repaint each letter...
I bought acrylic paint from Joann's Fabrics.
It was called "stencil paint" and was about $2.00 for the bottle.
I painted the letters in pure black
knowing that I would be sanding and distressing them back off...
Here's the sign
before I distressed the paint...
I bought some sandpaper specifically made for paint removal...
It was very coarse and did a great job at removing just the paint
without scratching the wood all up!
I went over the letters till I removed just the right amount of paint. I could have gone a bit heavier and taken more off, but since I was going to hang the sign very high, I stopped while the letters were still somewhat dark.
The black edge shown above is the original paint....
I have high ceilings in my kitchen
with some niche areas that were empty and undecorated.
At 8 feet long,
this sign was a "statement piece"
big enough to fill the empty space...
I added my vintage tea tin
which I purchased a while ago
at Flea Market Wednesday....
and dropped in a (fake) ivy...
I also added 2 glass bottles to balance out the other corner...
For two years, I never knew what to put up there. I bought this sign because I loved it. I never guessed this is where it would end up.... It just seemed to work out! I love when that happens!
So glad to finally have that space decorated!
It was such an easy project,
I want to make another sign!
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