The Best Way to Up Cycle an Old Rickety Fence

by DIY Passion

3 Materials

4 Hours

Medium

Ahoy Hometalkers!
Back again today to share one of my absolute FAVORITE up cycle projects we have ever done in the history of our blog. It all started when we desperately needed to clean up our backyard. I guess the previous owners were 'green thumbs', but once they decided to sell the house, the yard was left to just grow in on itself.
The first thing we decided to do was get rid of this random bit of fencing that was right in the middle of the yard.

the best way to up cycle an old rickety fence, fences

The boards were straight and almost all the same length. It occurred to me that they'd be the perfect accent wall in our laundry room! But they were gross and grimy. So I gave them all a good scrub down with soapy water and some oxygen bleach first and I let them dry completely.

The next step was to sand and sand and sand! Dan used a belt sander and I followed that up on each board with a palm sander. We wanted each board to look slightly different and we wanted to draw out the grain.

Dust them off and a little bit of gel stain was added to each board. Some more than others. Again, we were going for a mis-matched kind of look!

Then we started with our nicest board, a stud finder and a nail gun and started nailing our planks to the laundry room wall. We just fit them together like puzzle pieces and cut them down where we needed to so they'd fit flush.

This project was done about three years ago, and only recently with our large scale basement makeover has this plank wall really started to look like it belongs in the space. I'm so thrilled we were able to do it for free!

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3 questions

Hillela G. on Jun 09, 2016
Looks great! Can we see an after pic?

2
Jalene Clemons Schroeder on Jun 11, 2016
Can gel stain be used to polish hard wood floors? If so how, if not what can I use?

2
Karen on Jun 11, 2016
Was that treated wood? If so, won't you get so off gasing?

2