Fence Wood Dandelion Painting

If you've got a girlfriend, you've got to learn to love Pinterest. It basically serves as a wish list for her birthday, Christmas, your anniversary, etc. When I noticed that my own girlfriend had pinned a custom painted fence wood dandelion painting from an Etsy store named InspireMeHomeDecor, I decided to see if I could buy her one. As much as I loved the artist's work, the price I was quoted just wasn't within my budget. I became determined to re-create the painting myself.

I started by scavenging some old pallets. They're pretty easy to come by where I live, otherwise, I would have just pulled a few from the back of my local grocery store. Ideally, I'd have chosen some pallets that had been kiln dried or otherwise heat treated, but that didn't seem to be an option. I merely selected some gently weathered pallets that didn't appear to have any contaminants. It was also important for me to choose pallets that were not too damaged and were free from bowing and warping. I also disregarded any pallets that smelled weird or had stains/oil marks on them. Once I got the pallets home, I yanked the boards off of them using a hammer and crowbar. In some cases, I was able to bang the nail out from the reverse side. Mostly, I just pulled and pried. I soon noticed that the weathering was different among each of the pallets I had chosen, so I would have to work with the material from one pallet if I wanted to keep a consistent look for the fence wood dandelion painting.


Pulling the boards off gave me six plank boards that were approximately 5 feet long. And while that would have roughly worked with InspireMeHomeDecor's dimensions for the original fence wood dandelion painting, I felt it was too big for what I was trying to do. I decided to cut the boards in half, resulting in 12 plank boards that were two-and-a-half feet long. This would prove to be much easier to manage. I used a power saw to cut the boards in half. Precise measurements weren't needed as I knew that I'd be assembling them boards in a somewhat scattered pattern. I just tried to get as close to 30 inches as possible on each boards. Once the boards had been cut, I considered sanding them down, which would have made them easier to work with, but I decided against it as it would take off the weathering pattern.



I assembled the boards into a scattered pattern. I had originally planned to use two more pieces of plank wood to run across the height of the canvas at both ends in order to hold the planks together. However, seeing as some wood from the packaging of a recent flooring purchase was available, I used that instead. I bound it all together with a staple gun and two-and-a-half inch staples. I picked up a pair of picture hanging hooks, screwed them to the tie-boards and ran piece of wire between them. This would make the painting easier to mount on a wall.

Actually painting the thing was the trickiest part. Even though it's a simple picture, I'm no artist. And I had absolutely no idea what materials I would need to work with in order to achieve the look I had been wanting. I had to punt and consult an actual artist at this point. Pallet wood is very porous and soaks up paint very easily, so painting it as is would present a challenge. It was suggested that I prime it. Indeed, InspireMeHomeDecor had white washed her planks when she created her fence wood dandelion painting. I decided against treating the wood in any way as I really wanted to keep the original petina. This meant that the dandelion image had to be painted very carefully and it took a fair amount of effort since the planks tended to suck up the paint like a sponge.

The end result of my efforts to create a fence wood dandelion painting is below. Overall, not bad for a guy who had no idea what he was doing to begin with. But, would you actually pay money for it or pin it to your Pinterest? That's up to you.

My Version Of A Fence Wood Dandelion Painting