A lesson in layering color techniques to create a driftwood finish.

I love a good hack. It’s not completely custom, not completely out of the box but 100% one of a kind. This project was for a client’s living room work station. We purchased the bookcase and filing cabinets (Wayfair’s Chambers standard bookcase in chalked chestnut) that had a rustic grayish-white washed oak finish and paired it with birch plywood tabletops that wrapped around the walls. How to match or at least compliment driftwood oak with birch wood? I could have done either 1. stained the birch in a contrasting color to the oak or 2. match the birch wood to look like the bookcases grayish-white finish. Though it was dicey, I chose the latter.

The dilemma was the driftwood oak bookcases were a replica of a weathered look and I wanted to replicate the replica. One known factor, only the birch wood could be altered since the purchased bookcase and cabinet had a sealed finish on it. So, I tried a couple different treatment techniques on the birch wood.. First just staining, then just pickling. Separately as a single treatment, they looked wrong. Finally I settled on staining and then layering with a pickled finish….ding ding ding!

Do the purchased bookcases and the birch table tops look like they’re cut from the same tree? You be the judge.

Step by Step tutorial

Materials: (all can be purchased at your local hardware store) stain, white interior paint, staining sponge, rag

Step 1: Staining the wood with Minwax weathered oak from my local Lowes. (here’s a tutorial on staining) This alters the color of the birch wood to a grey wood.

Step 2: After letting the stain soak in and dry, I’m able to apply my 2nd treatment which is to layer on a pickled finish to give me that greyish- white wash. (here’s a tutorial on pickling).

Tip: use a drier sponge when staining and pickling. Wipe off excess and drips quickly so to have streaky look