EASIEST AGED WOOD STAIN….EVER!
So we bought this wood from Home Depot to back in our stair steps. The problem is….our stair steps are 50 years old and I need it to match as close as possible! I didn’t want to get all these different stains and have to mess around with it since there are so many shades and undertones it just would’ve overwhelmed me.
So that’s when I consulted good ol’ pinterest to see what my options were. I came upon a tutorial that talks about using vinegar and steel wool to create a stain. The steel wool is suppose to dissolve and then that’s your stain. However, that process can take anywhere from 12 hours-a week. Since I’m not patient I created my own techinique!
I grabbed the steel wool with apple cider vinegar and two different colors of dirt from my yard! One more red and one more brown. I experimented by wiping the vinegar onto the wood with the steel wool just enough for it to be damp and then put the dirt on top and rubbed it in.
This is how the red, brown, and then natural colored wood looked against the stairs. I really liked the brown dirt and thought it matched pretty dang close to the stairs!
I wore gloves and would do one side of wood and then flipped it over to do the other sides. The nice thing about this is you can add more or wipe it off if you want it lighter! Basically, it’s very forgiving and honestly I know it sounds crazy but just wait!
Aged wood look in just a few minutes! Depending on the type of wood or the color of dirt you use it might require some playing around but I would much rather do that than stain. I think I’ve just had to sand off so many layers of thick sticky stain off of furniture that I’d rather use that as a last resort.
Thumbs up because we’re feeling good!
That top piece is the one I started with and is completely dry while the ones underneath are still damp! Such a gorgeous color and the perfect cottage color in my opinion! If you need a jar of my dirt just let me know haha
Here’s the finished result for our stairs and how PERFECTLY the color matched to give a gorgeous aged staircase with character which is exactly what I was aiming for!
If you give this a try you’ll have to let me know!
xoxo
