In addition to the many other activities I pursue since I retired, I run an estate sale business with a friend—R2 Estate Sales. We kind of fell into doing it, but we really enjoy helping people liquidate estates and we have a great group of friends that are part of the team! We completed on recently in Bourbon, Indiana. One of the items that didn't sell was this sign.
It was a handcrafted sign, which I'm sure was a passion project for the person that created it. Of course, it is difficult to sell because it was personalized with the owner's name. No one in the family had claimed the sign and it was put in the sale. I decided to purchase it because I knew I could give it a new life.
I began to sand it—and the paint was barely budging. I have a cordless sander that takes care of a lot of my projects, but the paint on this one wasn't going to come off easily. So I broke out the corded, larger sander.
After about 20 minutes of sanding and progressing from various grits of sandpaper, the paint and finish were gone, but the Stull's hadn't gone anywhere. So I started again with a heavier grit progressing to a finer grit of sandpaper.
And sanded,
and sanded,
and sanded... After another 20 minutes,
...it was still visible. I had to walk away for the day.
After a couple of days, I hit it with the sander again—and it finally became a smooth piece of wood with no hint of the former paint job. Finally!
Then a coat of stain was applied (I believe this was Early American color). It took the stain beautifully and I love the rich color!
I created a stencil with my Silhouette Cameo 3 machine. It was a simple statement. Home.
Side note: I have to confess. I wasn't born in Indiana. I was born on a military base. My father served our country for 22 years on active duty and another 10 in the reserves. We moved to Indiana when he retired from the service. Indiana was his home. We moved to northern Indiana to be near my paternal grandparents. Turns out I have deep roots in Indiana. My 3x great grandparents settled here in 1830 with their young family. And I have lived here longer than I have lived anywhere else, and I am an Indiana University "Hoosier", so I claim Indiana as home as well.
I used Waverly chalk paint in the Ivory color to paint the word home.
And now it is finished. I had planned to remove the old chain that was used to hang it and just put a hanger on the back of the wood to give it a cleaner look, but I kinda like how the the chain looked with the new wood stain, so I kept it.
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Below is an image to pin to Pinterest if you would like to save this idea!
