{ Fall Leaves + Color Washing }

 

For the past two weeks we have literally spent most of our free time raking leaves. Do you guys have this problem this time of year too? I guess I never really had to deal with leaves growing up because I lived in town and we had like two trees in our yard and most of the leaves would be raked up in a matter of a weekend. Then when we built our first house back in 2005, we didn't have very many tree's in the mowed yard portion of our property. So this house has been quite the adjustment for us.

We have - in just the mowed portion of our property - at least 10 trees. Ten trees that seem to have endless leaves falling every.single.day. into our yard. One of those trees being in the very front of our house and dropping around 2 truck bed full loads daily ha!

They are beautiful. It's been (kinda) fun raking with the kids each night BUT I decided though for next year we need one of those behind the mower pick-er-upper things. You know those things right?! ;)

If you have one that you want to sell, email me. Seriously. No, Seriously!

So while the leaves are taking up all of our time these days, I did manage to squeeze in a few small projects last week.

One was making homemade applesauce. The second project was color washing some barn wood to put hooks on for coat hanging.

I'm going to share my color washing project with you because it's quick! Have you guys color washed before? If you've heard of white washing, it's the same concept, and can be done other colors, not just white.

Basically you take a paint color - mix it with a small amount of water, and paint it on wood. This gives the wood the color but yet you still see the grain behind it. Unlike just painting the wood that completely covers up the grain.

Here's how I did mine. I used an old sock, a cup of water, a paint brush (not pictured-obviously) and black chalk board paint.

You don't need to use chalk board paint, it's just the only black paint I had on hand so I decided to use it since black was the color I was going for.

This is what the wood looked like after Mark put it through the wood planer and before I color washed it.

 

I set it up downstairs to paint.

I dipped my sock in the water cup then dabbed the sock onto the top of the paint can to get a little color on the sock.

 

I put little paint on the paint brush and brushed it on the board in one quick swipe and then rubbed my water and color sock all over the board spreading the paint around. I dipped the sock into the water again when it started to feel like it was drying out.  

 

It looks a lot like stain. It gives the board a deep color in all the nooks and crannies and a lighter color on the surface. Showing off all the character while still adding color to the wood.

 

I only did one of the long sides and the edges since we will be hanging these up on the wall. The hooks are on and the wall is being painted this week. Once the paint is dry we will have these beauty's up so we can hang some coats. Which we DESPERATELY need coat hanging space. Currently there isn't a solution for coats by our entry and now that cold weather is here we need something!

 

You can see the difference between the color washed board to the left and the pre-color board on the right below. Looks like stain, doesn't it? It's actually really beautiful and I'm glad I tried this method of painting instead of just flat out painting the boards black!

 

 

 Here are a couple other examples of color washing that other people have done. I really like this way of painting wood - and bonus it was REALLY REALLY easy and quick to do.

 

 

 

How cool are those rooms? I'm excited to show you the done project. Hopefully by next week but who knows... maybe we'll be buried under leaves never to be found again!

Back to the apple sauce making...I want to try one other way of doing homemade applesauce, so after I do that I'll share my thoughts on the easiest way - in my opinion - to make it. What are your tried and true ways of doing applesauce?? I would love to hear any tips and tricks. This is my first attempt at it, so help a newbie out!