Hey friends! I’m SO pumped to share this awesome makeover with you today! Seriously, even my sweet Mr. had doubts on this one. If we haven’t met yet, I’m Shelly from Dolen Diaries where I share my love of all things creative and creating with the ones I love. My husband and I have most of our date nights in our garage working on projects and this was one garage date night that Micah wasn’t seeing my vision right away.
A sweet friend of mine introduced me to the local university’s surplus sale. It was pure heaven and if you get the chance you need to see if your local college has one, too! I found a couple of really cool chairs that will be receiving a makeover to be used for summer entertaining. Oh man do I have plans for our deck! Summer just ended and I can’t wait to get her back so I can make my outdoor entertaining dreams come true! But back to the bulletin board…I found this guy along with 40 of his friends in a huge box. They all had this really cool woven material for the actual bulletin board part and I thought it would be perfect for displaying the boy’s artwork in the playroom. The only problem was…
This super deep UW etched in the top of the board. I love the U as much as the next girl but this wasn’t part of my design plan. I figured I could skin it with something cool to cover that up and for $10 I was pumped about the potential this bad boy had.
The bulletin board sat in our carport for a month, no joke. I had shared my idea with Micah and he was sure we could figure something out using just the frame that was already there. Finally with a stroke a genius he had the idea to use the angle grinder to grind down the UW. I was totally sold on a Rustic Bulletin Board Frame Makeover but knew he would have to be in charge of the angle grinder. It’s a legit scary piece of machinery as in this isn’t a beginner’s friend. So if you are a beginner ask around and see if someone has one and would be willing to do this part for you. If you don’t have access to an angler grinder try using a hammer and dent the thing up!
Micah ground the face of the frame leaving all kinds of amazing character.
Next, I used an orbital sander and sanded, and sanded, and sanded…this part took a little while and I was COVERED in sawdust! I had been making some zucchini bread and popped out of the kitchen to sand while it baked. Note to self do not wear a kitchen apron with pockets out to sand. It took a few goes with the air compressor to blow all of the sawdust out of the pockets.
After sanding any piece we always like to thoroughly blow it the dust off with the air compressor then wipe it off with a cloth. Once the bulletin board was dust free, I masked and taped off the center of the bulletin board just leaving the frame exposed.
I used Minwax stain in ebony because I knew the grooves in the wood would really pop with the darker stain. Once the stain dried, we sprayed it with a clear coat to protect the finish.
We’re both totally obsessed with how our Rustic Bulletin Board Frame Makeover turned out! In fact, I’m going to go back to the surplus sale with the hope that I’ll be able to pick up two more bulletin boards. I’d like to have one for each of our boys to put their own work on since they all love to draw and do projects for display.
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