DIY Apartment Number Plaque

Well, summer has struck, which makes me cranky. I don’t like heat, I’m far happier in the winter. But, summer (for me at least) means lots of indoor time, hiding from the sun, which means lots of crafts! 

As part of my ongoing endeavours to make my apartment more pretty, I managed to DIY a new door number that looks much nicer than the one that the landlord stuck to the door who knows how many years ago. 

Here’s the ugly landlord number: 

And here’s what my little plaque looks like: 

To do this project, I used some thin pieces of wood that I stained using tea, vinegar, and steel wool: 

Other materials used include water, E6000 glue, finishing wax, an old sock, a hand saw (to cut the wood to length), two tongue depressors, and a foam brush. 

For the wood pieces, I used two paint sticks that I had laying around the house, so the total cost for this project was simply the cost of the house number, which I got from my local hardware store for about $3. 

First thing first, I needed to make my stain out of steel wool and vinegar. The chemistry behind this staining method involves the vinegar oxidizing the steel wool, and producing a rust, so really I rusted my wood rather than stain it. But it looks like beautiful stain, and doesn’t have terrible fumes, and it’s free, so I’m all for it. 

To make this stain, soak a little wad of steel wool (about the size of a pingpong ball when it’s balled up) in some white vinegar for at least 12 hours. This is what mine looked like after 24 hours: 

After this project was finished, I decided to keep the stain for future projects. After about 3 days the steel wool had been reduced to crumbs at the bottom of the jar and the vinegar had turned the colour of very strong tea. I tried out the stain on some different wood and it worked just the same. 

Anyways, the day after I began soaking my steel wool, I cut up my paint sticks into as close to the same size as my unskilled hands could manage: 

Then some more chemistry comes into play. Before staining I prepped my wood pieces by brushing them with tea. The tannins in tea help to open the pours of the wood so that it soaks up the stain more uniformly. Apparently tea is a pro-tip for all staining projects, not just steel wool/vinegar stain. 

The tea did not change the colour of the wood at all, it just soaked into the grain. Once the wood was dry I started applying the steel wool stain. When using a fresh mixture the liquid is clear, so you will not see the wood change colour immediately. As the stain dries, you will see the wood darken. I did five coats total, but after three coats I didn’t notice any further change in colour. I guess three coats is what it takes. This is how it looked after staining: 

I let the wood dry overnight, then I polished it with finishing wax. To do this, I put a ball of wax in the toe of an old sock and rubbed it onto the wood. Below you can see the original paint stick underneath, the stained wood at the top, and the waxed wood on the bottom. 

I used tongue  depressors as a backing to glue the wood pieces to. Because of the wax, regular glues, hot glue, or wood glue will not stick. E6000 that puppy. 

Since the wood was too thin for the screws that came with my house number, I used E6000 to glue that on as well: 

Then, to finish it off, I filled the screw holes with E6000, placed little plastic caps over them, and painted them black to match the number. 

I used 3M command hook stickies to hang the plaque (you can buy those stickies without the hooks you know). I just love the way it turned out. And my neighbours are very impressed with my handy-work.