Y’all know already I enjoy the perfect mixture of vintage and new inside my house. I base a lot of my design around the vintage pieces, and complement them a few more unique finds and new decor. Sometimes those new pieces are a bit too new, if you know what I mean. You want it to fit in, look vintage or look antique. They may look okay in a space, but their newness sticks out like a sore thumb. I found that to be the case here with this new metal clock. This is a pretty common metal clock found at boutiques and home decor stores, we carry this one at The Found Cottage, but you can find one similar [HERE] #AF. One day I brought it home & I liked it, but I didn’t… LOVE it. So, I decided since I’ve aged a few things in the past that I would give it a go on this large metal clock in our kitchen…

I hung the clock above our rolling rack we purchased a few months back when we visited Savvy City Farmhouse (Read about that here), and it fit the space great. The overall size and volume of the clock fit perfect as the back drop to our top shelf display… but it was a bit too new for all the elements we were throwing at it. I was almost done with the clock and ready to move on from it, and still might, but I wanted to try out this technique to age metal, and what better piece than one you are getting ready to move from, right?

 

After trying a few methods, I combined a few of them & feel like I got the perfect DIY aging recipe:

2 Cups Vinegar

1 Cup Hydrogen Peroxide

1/2 Cup Water

1 Tablespoon Salt

Here is the clock before I aged it:

 

& after I aged it:

I combined all the ingredients  into a spray bottle. Before we could start spraying away we had to expose the bare metal that was beneath the top coat. Usually on new metal decor, they put a clear coat sealer of some sort, so you have to remove that and the the paint to expose some raw silver metal to age. We started with the wire wheel on a drill. This works out great with removing large sections at a time. For precision, we used a dermal with a grinding wheel that came to a point. When we went to age it… we wanted to try to tell a story, as most authentic pieces do. We wanted to capture possible ways that particular rust came to be there.

We found welding points to expose, a line down the middle that brings the two halves together. We briefly exposed that seam to show wear. The box in the bottom of the clock, we thought of a patch that was welded into place to replace a hole or weak point. Once all the sections were sanded to my liking I sprayed the mixture onto the clock and let it set for about an hour and sprayed again. After about 3 hours I lightly sprayed the clock with water & wiped down the non-rusty areas down to clean off all of the rust color off of the places where I didn’t want rust. Do not rub the rusted areas because it’s just a light layer and will rub off. Not a huge deal because you can just use the solution all over again on those areas, but just a warning. You can play around with it after you clean it off to see if you want to sand/rust anymore areas as well. Have fun, be creative, & age all the decor! you can do this to metal baskets, clocks, hardware, lights, metal furniture, and so much more! It’s a great way to make decor unique to your home & your style!

 

Here is a quick shopping list for all the tools we used..

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