Cleaning Reclaimed Barn Wood

A friend and i managed to find a beautiful barn door and so i took it home and it sat in my garage for quite some time.

Cleaning reclaimed barn wood.

Once the wood was dry from its cleaning i used a regular paint brush and sparingly applied the minwax finish. This tutorial shows you how to do it. Barn wood can add weathered rustic charm to your home. I washed down the old barn wood first then using the water hoes brush and adding 1 part bleach and 2 part water in the attached container i went to work.

The most important lesson i ve learned with reclaimed wood is when to lightly clean it vs. Years ago when i started cleaning reclaimed wood i would sand it down with a hand sander which would get rid of that beautiful patina and some of the character. Then the idea was born to use this as the top of my craft room work table. The last step to clean and refinish your reclaimed wood is to properly seal the wood.

Within minutes the wood was looking much cleaner and i had lots of fun scrubbing that old nasty barn wood. I love how pretty reclaimed wood is. Next once the wood was dry i took it to the planer this cut the sanding process. Picture frames and furniture can be constructed out of reclaimed barn wood and this is a good way to reuse old wood at the same time.

I used minwax polycrylic water based protective finish in clear satin you guys this stuff is amazing. If you re planning to use it in a project the first step of that project will be to clean the old wood assuming of course that you re like me and you want to install clean reclaimed wood into your home. And unfortunately i learned this the hard way. Cleaning reclaimed wood salvaged wood often comes with an intriguing backstory and a unique appearance but also with embedded dirt dust and debris.

However due to the age of many barn wood planks a thorough cleaning is required to make them safe to use in projects or in your home. Give it a scrub or sand down.