10 Fresh Designs for a Reclaimed-Wood Wall
Choose different woods and colors to create a style that’s all your own
By now you’ve probably seen countless pictures of accent walls crafted of reclaimed wood. Often they come from an antique barn or another historic structure. And while these are lovely and full of character, these days many homeowners are looking to put their own stamp on this idea. In the projects that follow, architects, interior and landscape designers, woodworkers and artists have found ways to do something different and original with salvaged wood.
2. Combine untreated and painted pieces. Throughout the home he shares with his wife, Morgan Lord, custom framer and woodworker Raun Meyn added layers of history via the reclaimed pieces he uses at his business, Foundre: Made. The dining room wall, aptly placed next to their album collection, provides a strong rhythm thanks to Meyn’s graphic eye. He laid out an energetic composition of reclaimed lumber. They are a mix of barn boards and slightly bluish-gray house siding. The use of two materials provides a strong contrast.
To prep the boards for an installation like this, Meyn runs them through a planer after removing all the old nails and squares them off with a jigsaw. He uses thin finishing nails to attach them to the wall.
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To prep the boards for an installation like this, Meyn runs them through a planer after removing all the old nails and squares them off with a jigsaw. He uses thin finishing nails to attach them to the wall.
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3. Go for color, lots and lots of color. In this circa 1910 Craftsman house, the homeowners wanted to use as many materials from the era as possible. These colorful boards were reclaimed from the interior and exterior of an old schoolhouse and adjacent outbuilding and were painted by the children who attended the school. “The boards were originally painted a single color per wall. We looked at the available materials and created a palette arrangement to highlight the variety of colors,” says Shannon Lenstra, owner and CEO of Kon-strux Developments. “The intent was, of course, bringing cheer and whimsy to this basement rec room.”
They left the boards in their original weathered condition but sealed them to preserve the look.
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They left the boards in their original weathered condition but sealed them to preserve the look.
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4. Plan the composition beforehand. For this laundry room on Mayne Island in British Columbia, the boards were inspired by reclaimed lumber walls but are new. However, the paint could be considered “reclaimed.” Artist Ian McLeod used what he called “the dregs” of all the paint cans left over from other home projects to give the new boards a reclaimed look. He carefully planned the composition, and his partner, Kerry Johnson, meticulously installed them according to his layout.
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5. Consider the ends. It was Johnson’s idea to wrap the paint around the corners, adding an intriguing dimension that foreshadows what you’ll see before rounding the corner.
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6. Conversely, go random. The color pattern of the boards in this renovated California wine country home was a happy accident. The boards were taken off the walls during construction, and the plan always was to reuse them. Each room had been painted a different color. The contractors began reinstalling them randomly, as a fresh paint job was also in the plans. But after the homeowner saw how wonderful the haphazard combinations looked, she had them keep installing them at random. The result is an eclectic reshuffling of the home’s history.
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7. Make new construction look old. This pool house is new construction, but you’d never guess it. This is largely due to the way builder Nathan Daves reused weathered siding from a dilapidated 1930s sharecropper’s house nearby to wrap the building. He derived the style of the structure from vernacular Texas settler architecture. The result is that it looks like an old building that’s been repurposed into a pool house.
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Read more about this poolhouse
8. Make the boards stand out by surrounding them with white. In this beach house, interior designer and historic preservationist Jane Coslick used reclaimed boards from the home’s original walls on the kitchen bar. She highlighted the unique feature by painting the rest of the ceilings and walls crisp, clean white. The colors in the reclaimed wood also play off the weathered patina of the table and the more subtle colors in the seashell chandelier.
9. Salvage boards with special meaning. When artist Kelley Ash and her husband, Mark, an architect, were designing and building their new home themselves, they brought family history into the kitchen through colorful reclaimed boards. These boards came from Kelley’s grandmother’s home, which was torn down. The walls inspired a kitchen with vintage flair.
“My grandmother used to have a color explosion in her house,” Kelley reported to Houzz contributor Corynne Pless. “So I guess you could say she was my inspiration — not only in my design, but in my folk art paintings as well.”
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“My grandmother used to have a color explosion in her house,” Kelley reported to Houzz contributor Corynne Pless. “So I guess you could say she was my inspiration — not only in my design, but in my folk art paintings as well.”
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10. Use them as a screen. Landscape designer Beth Mullins worked with the existing lower fence around this patio and painted it sage green. She then added a one-of-a-kind screen fashioned from reclaimed pieces, every one of them handpicked by her. “I concentrated on a wider board thickness in the wood hues that were brown, not the reds or yellows I may have gotten with certain types of wood,” she says. “I also was intrigued by the text on some of the boards and then having a few pops of color.”
Note the way she attached some of the reclaimed pieces to the lower fence to tie it all together. The various colors and textures keep the arrangement interesting. The screen adds privacy, but deliberate open spots keep the space from feeling closed in — views from beyond the deck and textures from foliage peek through the screen. “I had each board put up one by one and made sure to leave open, ‘negative’ space so that it did not get too crowded and had access to views beyond,” she says. “I did not want a true rectangular window. Staggering the boards helped create the openness without it feeling forced.”
Mullins suggests picking the boards all at once to keep a consistent palette in terms of colors and textures. While she says that there really aren’t any rules to arranging the boards, she advises stepping back and seeing how it looks from farther away as you go along.
More: What to Know About Adding a Reclaimed-Wood Wall
Note the way she attached some of the reclaimed pieces to the lower fence to tie it all together. The various colors and textures keep the arrangement interesting. The screen adds privacy, but deliberate open spots keep the space from feeling closed in — views from beyond the deck and textures from foliage peek through the screen. “I had each board put up one by one and made sure to leave open, ‘negative’ space so that it did not get too crowded and had access to views beyond,” she says. “I did not want a true rectangular window. Staggering the boards helped create the openness without it feeling forced.”
Mullins suggests picking the boards all at once to keep a consistent palette in terms of colors and textures. While she says that there really aren’t any rules to arranging the boards, she advises stepping back and seeing how it looks from farther away as you go along.
More: What to Know About Adding a Reclaimed-Wood Wall
Another detail not revealed in this daylight shot provides another great idea: backlighting the wall. The designers placed the accent wall out 8 inches from the blue wall, then backlighted it to provide a glowing ambience after dark.
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