Somewhat tutorial in Aged Windows, Walls and Door....

So I am not really going to call this a Tutorial because I am not giving step by step instructions... just kind of sharing my tools and thoughts on how I made the wall in the previous post.

Below you can see the new door that I bought. The Alison Jr. door just didn't have enough character for me and I didn't want to spend a ton of time bashing it so I just spent the $7 on a new door at hobby lobby. I aged it with the same tools you can see below that I used on the window frames. I still need to add some plexiglass to the top tiny four windows and maybe some more leading.... anyway it functions as an opening door and everything... need to find a decent door nob though...


Below you can see how I modified the original Alison Jr. windows. They came with a pine colored frame and white painted stripes to look like window mullions. What I did was banged the frame up a bit, stained it, sanded the edges of the plexiglass to make it look foggy/older, and then went over the white painted lines with fake leading (I posted a pic of the bottle of that stuff below). If you want to do this remember it is important to SAND THE PLEXI BEFORE YOU DO THE LEADING or you will most definitely have to slap yourself on the forehead.


Here are the basic tools I used to beat up the wood frames of the windows and door. A box cutter (or a xacto will work too but the box cutter is bigger and doesn't hurt my hand as much), a couple files, and some sand paper. I dig the big gouges you see in the frames with the box cutter and then I make lighter gouges with the files. Then I sand the whole thing over to make it look rounded and well worn. don't be afraid to gouge into the sides of the frames either... make it look like someone rounded the corner too fast with a peice of furniture and took a chunk out :) PS. I do this all before I put it into the wall.... I just happened to show the window already in the wall here for some reason...


Here you can see the fake leading I used. This is the big bottle... you can get a smaller 3 or 4 oz. bottle for smaller projects. You can find it in the isle with the peices of glass and plexiglass most of the time.


Also, very last tip. So I wanted to age this sheet paper (scapbook paper) that I am using as wall paper with my stain. BUT the paper absorbed the stain so quickly that I couldn't work and let me do it in layers as I wanted to. So i decided to paint on it. So anyone wanting to do this DO NOT use acrylics. They are water based and will crinkle and wrinkle your wall paper. If you want to use paint, use oil paints. My suggestion is look for a tube of 'yellow ochre' OIL paint. It will grunge and yellow anything up :). Then you add a bit of turpentine to the paint slowly and it will thin out the paint so you can paint in thin layer and build up to the intensity of color you want. My suggestion is to add the turpentine by getting a bit on your brush and then putting your brush into the paint and keep doing that 'til its thin enough for you.

Feel free to ask questions if none of this makes sense. Also, I wouldn't suggest painting anything else in your house with oils as oils take FOREVER to dry. This is really the only thing I would use oils for - just to 'tint' a wall paper without wrinkling it. And the turpentine is smelly so beware...


Ok - that's it. Sorry for the long winded explanation. Look like I still have some touch ups to do on the windows looking closer at the pictures..... anyway happy dirtying :)