February 6, 2012by Kristin Jackson10 CommentsDecor

A NATURAL GRAY

Well a plan for a desk at least.  If you have been following me for any amount of time whatsoever, you’ll remember a few ideas I’ve had for a desk in our home, especially having one in the bedroom.  Well now that I am working more & more { keep it coming } Staying up late on the computer while the hubs is sleeping would not be the ideal situation for us.well.him.  So we finally made a grand sacrifice (to be revealed at a later date) & we now have a great space in our kitchen!  Plus the kitchen was on the To Do List this year anyways, this will just be a head start.  We are going to build our own desk, with built in shelving above & the great news is… we already have 98% of the materials lying around for the desk itself!  See what happens when you Hunt your house!  This is my main inspiration for the desk…
{ Restoration Hardware }

I love the ornate balusters for legs & the grayed out wood.  Balusters: Check!  Ours aren’t quite like these, but they are large enough to make the same impact.  Grayed Wood: Potential Check…  
Under our deck we have had these 6′ x 9″ boards that I haven’t had the heart to throw away.  Free Wood People.  I even got creative with one of the boards on Thanksgiving.  They look gross (& trust me they were)… but after pulling them out scrubbing them with pure bleach & hosing them down they look like this…
Better, but not the grayed look I was going for.  Off to the internet I went… So I found a bunch of sites referencing a recipe of sorts to create a natural gray stain.  I read it, I had all the ingredients, why not try it?  I would test it on the underside of the boards & if it didn’t work… at least I tried.
Materials List:
Glass Mason Jar
Steel Wool
Distilled White Vinegar
Tea Bags
Hot Water
Curious yet?  Yeah, me too.  Basically the first thing you do is shred the Steel Wool into small pieces, putting them into the Jar.  You may want to wear some protective gloves.  The Steel Wool got my fingers pretty good.  Then you cover the Steel Wool with the Vinegar & let it set for 24 hours.
Brew the tea bags, I used Liptons, into two cups of hot water & let steep.  Brush the Tea onto the wood & let dry.  Once your Steel Wool concoction has marinated & your tea has dried, simply brush on the Vinegar with a paint brush.  That is when the magic is supposed to happen…
I will say that it did gray out the wood… Maybe not to the degree I was wanting, but not a bad start!  I may attempt a few other methods, but for a free & non toxic (just stinky) method I am pretty impressed.
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