Turn Old Decor into Something Beautiful

We love a good decor up-cycle at the Doghouse! Especially on a budget! This metal frame is gigantic. If I had to guess, it’s about 3-ish ft tall from point to point. In its former life, this decor had a clock in the middle. Whenever my aunt does a good spring cleaning, she gives me this kind of stuff because she knows I love to update it! Here’s what I started out with:

I immediately had a vision for this piece. I knew where I wanted it to go and exactly what I wanted it to look like. I started off by wiping down the decor thoroughly. It was sitting in my garage for a few days before I was ready to do this project, so I wanted to make sure I removed all the dust (and possibly little critters that made this a home).

I started off by laying the metal decor over a piece of wood and drawing a circle. I used the side of the frame to guide the pen all the way around. This wood circle is going to be an insert in the big hole where the clock was.

When I lifted the metal decor, it looked like this:

This gave me an approximate size of the circle I needed to fill the hole.

POWER TOOL TIME!!

Using my Ryobi Jig Saw, I cut out the circle following the line I drew.

After I cut the circle, I went back with my sander and smoothed out the edges. This was by far the most tedious part of this DIY. The metal decor was not a perfect circle, and the circle I cut was certainly not a perfect circle. It was almost right, except for a weird nub in a few places. I sanded and checked the fit around 20 times before it would slide “just right” into place inside the metal frame.

Once the wood was all sanded on the side and the top, I  painted it white using a matte white Behr paint.

In a nice sunny spot in my yard, I laid out a piece of wood that I use for scrap projects like this, and put the decor on top. I don’t like spray painting directly on the grass for two reasons. 1. It kills the grass. 2. I don’t like when the grass sticks to fresh paint. I sprayed as much of the decor as I could. then I waited for it to dry and flipped it around to spray the bottom half. I used black Rust-Oleum spray paint for this project and I loved the way it dried on the metal.

When the white paint on the wood finished drying, I added the quote, “Life takes us to unexpected places. Love brings us home.”

When the frame finished drying, I popped the wood into place,  secured it so I wouldn’t fall out, and hung it in our upstairs hallway!

This was a simple transformation that made a big difference on a budget!

If you haven’t seen the recycled decor in our Guest Bedroom Update, check that out.