How to Make a Hardware Sign

We purchased our eighth flip house at absolute auction, and it came “as is” with tons of stuff inside. Literally tons–the garbage dump weighed it for us when we dropped it off. Among the piles, I found this tablet of paper and knew it held special meaning.

The couple that had previously owned the house had also owned our town’s Hardware store for many years. I remember my visits to the store as a girl. I always loved it.

This tablet became my inspiration piece for creating an old Hardware sign to stage the house once it’s complete.

This post walks through the steps I took to make the sign (in case it inspires you to make one of your own), and also includes affiliate links to the tools I used.

My husband found these old boards in the garage loft while we were sorting through the piles of garbage. I ran over the boards with my orbital sander, fastened them together on the back with lattice strips and screws, and the boards were ready to go!

Using FROGTAPE, I mapped out where I wanted my design to be on the boards and measured the size so I could create the vinyl decals.

I used my Silhouette machine (worth it’s weight in gold) and created the vinyl decal.

I wrapped the outside edges of the decal with painter’s tape, and covered all of the wood that I didn’t want painted. This isn’t necessary if you’re using acrylic or latex paint and brushing or rolling it on, but since I wanted to use spray paint, I needed to cover the wood to prevent overspray on the boards.

I took it outside and spray painted over the decal.

And then the fun part…

All done!