My house has a lot of tall blank walls in it, and I have long had vague intentions of filling them with large-format art. In particular, I enjoy the idea of making my own large-format wall art out of flea market finds and craft materials, but between competing priorities and a lot of anxiety about messing things up the tall walls remain largely blank.
Some years ago I bought three distressed wooden arches full of metal scrollwork at the Liberty Antiques Festival in Randolph County, NC, though I wasn’t sure what to do with them. The woman who sold them to me was passingly confused that I wanted a blue one as well as two red ones, but she gave me a deal on the three of them together nonetheless. She said I clearly cared a lot about design and decorating, which is surely a line. The arches leaned against the unusable fireplace for at least two years before I needed the hearth space back, and after that I tucked them out of the way behind a bookshelf.
When I exchanged a piece of dining room furniture that had a hutch for a piece that did not have a hutch over the summer, it seemed that I had found a good blank wall for the wooden arches. The wall had picked up some damage over the preceding seven years, and covering that damage with art seemed easier than repainting.
Especially given the low price I’d paid for the set, the arches finally felt like a project I could and should afford to take a chance on. If I messed them up it was fine—I’d just paint the wall—and at least I wouldn’t have to try to clean around them anymore.
After consulting briefly with my father, hobbyist woodworker, by text message, I got them out from behind the bookshelf and pursued the following course of action.
With my fingernails and a rag, removed as much dirt and debris as I could. After their years of sitting around, the arches had picked up a significant amount of dust, cobwebs, and cat fluff. Removing all of it was difficult because the wood is rough, particularly in corners and on the back.
Took the arches out to the patio and went over them with steel wool, with the goal of wearing down the sharp, splintery patches while leaving most of the paint. Distressed is a generous way to describe the color situation, so paint preservation was not a top concern.
My steel wool stash was in an unmarked plastic zipper bag, but it was pretty obviously on the finer end of the grading scale (which goes from 5 to 0000).
Steel wool works by disintegrating. When I deemed the arches “smooth enough” for the next stage, it was not because they were actually smooth, but rather because my stash of steel wool had shrunk down to a raggedy patch about the size of a quarter and I was absolutely not making a special trip to the hardware store to get more.
Shook the arches vigorously and wiped them down with a rag to get rid of as many steel wool fragments as possible.
Put down flattened cardboard boxes to keep the arches and most of the overspray off the wooden portion of the patio. The patio is not in great shape, so I didn’t worry about it too much.
Walked around my yard for more than the prescribed two minutes shaking a can of spray satin finish polyurethane. The agitator makes a very authoritative and satisfying metal noise in the can.
Was not paying attention to the clearly marked spray nozzle and managed to spray myself a handful of polyurethane on first squeeze. It seems I should keep mineral spirits around the house in future, but it washed off fine without them.
Because the metal scrollwork didn’t need to be sprayed but also wouldn’t be damaged by a little incidental overspray, applying the finish was relatively easy. Holding each structure by the metal with one hand and wearing a designated yard jacket, I could rotate it as needed and keep the spray can upright and 12 inches away (more or less) as directed by the packaging. Applied three coats over the course of one afternoon, two hours apart, which just about emptied the can.
Let the arches dry indoors for over 24 hours. Flipped them over and added one sawtooth picture hanger to the back of each arch. The box of picture hangers says they’re rated up to 50 pounds; I was a little skeptical, though even the larger arch weighs nowhere near that.
Determined the spacing based on how far over the rightmost arch would need to be such that the outer edge would cover the worst spot on the wall. Have learned the hard way that my vintage house is far too crooked and warped and whimsical to reward very careful measuring and plotting, so I roughed in the basic desired distribution with pencil and an imperfectly leveled measuring tape and eyeballed the rest.
With a sufficiently heavy duty nail, the hangers worked fine in my plaster wall. Added a few adhesive foam pads to the back corners in the hope that they would help keep the arches level and prevent further rubbing damage, but this step has not been very effective so far.
Some things I learned for next time:
- Steel wool (at least the very fine stuff) is probably better reserved for surfaces that are nearly smooth already. Although I would have lost more of the paint, starting with sandpaper (or a coarser grade of steel wool) would have made a bigger difference faster and yielded a more polished result overall.
- I may not be chill enough for spray polyurethane. It was difficult to see exactly where the spray was going, and more difficult to ensure consistent coverage without blasting the target surface at short range, which is not recommended. I would give wipe-on polyurethane a try.
- The chemicals in spray polyurethane are not a joke, and flattened cardboard boxes absorb them. Contaminated paper or cloth materials need to be properly disposed of (outdoors) as soon as you’re done.
- I am rarely close enough to the things hanging on my wall to notice even large imperfections, so I should probably relax and try more art projects.
