Happy Scrappy

I've been seeing a lot of this 'covering walls with reclaimed wood scraps' going on lately.
It's a great way to keep some junk out of the landfills, and turn said junk into a great looking feature wall. I love heavy texture, and this is a relatively easy way to get some crazy-heavy texture on the walls. The biggest trick is finding enough of the wood to cover the wall you hope to cover. Pallets are a great source of wood, but you could also find reclaimed painted panelling, old flooring, barn wood... vintage yardsticks even ( although you would need a bajillion of them!)




Once you have found an abundance of material, the wood will need to have the nails or staples removed, rough edges sanded and I would also suggest sealing all surfaces of the wood with a matte sealer,such as Aquaseal or Dead Flat Varnish ( both by Faux Effects International) .


If you can't find the chippy and peeled off painted look that you want, create your own! You could use crackle mediums, wax or Vaseline to create a resist, and good old fashioned sanding for a look like this. When I am asked to create an authentic layered/peeled paint look, I frequently trowel on thin layers of venetian plaster over a basecoat of the same color as the plaster. Once the plaster is dry, I sand the entire thing, heavily in some areas to reveal the underlying wood. After wiping off the dust, I glaze the whole piece with a thin brown glaze for an authenticly aged look.



This project could be duplicated using staircase spindles, chair backs and other miscellaneous wooden parts, attached within a grid work. Gingerbread house parts can be easily found at most lumber yards. Once applied, the entire work is sprayed white, or any one color for that matter.


This project appears to have been completed with a few different sources of wood.






Not sure if this is actually reclaimed wood, it's very uniform and clean looking. I love the layout and linear appeal.





Here, plywood panels stained in 3 different shades were randomly applied to the walls. Plywood comes in a variety of thicknesses, even rolls of veneer thin sheeting is available.


Your project is largely dependent on the source of wood you find. There is sure to be a measure of serendipity to a project like this, here it looks as though the walls were covered with the backs and insides of large furniture pieces!

For a more modern take, varying sized bits of MDF were applied to this wall, and then sprayed glossy white. I LOOOOOVE this one! When painting an entire wall of applied wood a single color, don't forget to caulk any 'cracks' prior to painting.
This idea inspires me to buddy up to a carpenter and score some sweet scraps!