Excuse me sir, may I rip some boards off your barn?

That exact thought was starting to cross my mind every time I passed a run down old farm. I was getting desperate to get my hands on some old wood that I wanted to reclaim for myself. I wasn't sure what I'd do with it, but I knew I needed some. Bad.

As luck would have it, a trip to Door County this past weekend lead me to something even better. And not just because it wouldn't require me to keep a crowbar under my seat ... you know, just in case. No this was the jackpot because there was tons of it and it was for sale. Drift wood.

It was an old antique store and they had a pretty meaty pile of the stuff right in front of the main building. So I shuffled over in my floor length sun dress and decided to get diggin. A cool $25 later and I practically skipped out to the car with my new found treasure, eager to create something new when I got home.

After a little thought I decided I wanted to put the boards together to create a large piece of artwork to hang on a blank wall by my front entry door. The pieces were big and it would fill the spot nicely. So I got to work laying them out and flipping them around to try to get the edges to line up as best I could. Then I needed to figure out how to put them together.

I made a late night run to Taco Bell Home Depot and came back with eight 2" brackets. My hubby kindly helped me get the first few started and it was him that came up with the idea to bend a few to make them work with the different sized pieces. It was dreamy. Here's what it looked like.

After I had everything together I decided I wanted to paint something on it. I had seen a cool reclaimed wood headboard on Pinterest that had the word "love" written on it and really liked the idea of a crisp paint against the worn and weathered wood. That said, I considered the "love" idea taken and not quite my thing anyhow. Eventually I settled on a word that I loved hearing when we once vacationed to Rome: Ciao (pronounced in the non-dictionary way of "chow"). A casual Italian greeting used today as either hello or goodbye. Since it was going near my front door, it seemed fitting (my husband would later disagree with this but by then the deed was done). Before I got my Picasso on, this is the canvas I was working with.

So I rummaged around until I dug up some white paint and a brush, then got to it. It wasn't fancy so it didn't take long. I let it dry overnight and then picked up a simple picture hanging kit. I decided to use the little screws and picture wire since I wanted to have some flexibility as I wasn't certain where we'd find a stud in the wall. Happily, there was one near the middle.

And this is my masterpiece. Sometimes the crazy ideas in my head don't work out all that well. This one, well you could say I'm quite fond of it. I don't imagine it would suit everyone's taste but I've found my style is a blend of classic, contemporary and with some shabby thrown in. Now, as often happens, one project leads to another and this one will lead to me finding the right piece to go underneath it. My to do list never ends.