Before & After: A Rusty Reject Gets a Reclaimed Reno
When Julie’s family arrived at their new home in Ottawa, Ontario this gem was waiting in the driveway. The metal frames had been left over from a renovation and had been rusting outside for quite a while. But brave Julie took one look at the pile of rubble and immediately thought, “I can do something with that!”
From Julie:
I have been working with reclaimed wood for a while now and I love the wood and metal combination so I got to work. I live in this beautiful old neighborhood in Ottawa and there was a huge renovation going on around the corner. I asked a few bewildered construction workers if I could salvage some wood pieces and found exactly what I needed.
Step one: scrub.
Step two: scrub more.
It took a lot of time to get the metal base cleaned and ready for the primer. After I got the dirt and spiders and rust off, I applied 2 coats of primer and then 2 coats of slate blue paint. The metal base had holes in which I could attach a plywood base with screws and then nail and glue my boards on the base. The plywood was about $16 at Home Depot.
The most time consuming aspect was staining and sanding the boards. A lot of time goes into making old wood soft and beautiful again. I love how the project turned out. Another story about making something beautiful out of the discarded.
Thank you Julie!