Lake House Boat Oar Address

We’re in the midst of refreshing our small cottage lake house in southern Wisconsin.  The outside has undergone big visual changes for a very little amount of money.  (It’s amazing what garbage-picking and paint can do!)  Check out the before pics here.

All the sweat (and some tears), is really starting to pay off.  The big projects are wrapping up and now I can finally put my personal stamp on the place with the decor changes.  I wanted to create a unique address sign that had a lake house nautical feel since the house is right off the lake.

I found this vintage boat oar in the garage of our cottage, but I see them all the time at flea markets at well. This one was the perfect size for an address sign because the stem was fairly short. I’m not sure what type of boat this short oar would be for, but honestly any type of wooden oar would work just fine.

The oar I found had small amounts of the original green paint remaining. I love the color, but didn’t want to leave the finish as is. Instead of painting the whole thing and covering up all the original paint, I decided to use a distress to have some of the green paint show through the topcoat color of paint.

To paint the oar, I made a batch of homemade chalk paint (4 recipes compared in the post I linked), but first used a resist to help the green paint show through. You can read about my full process and a comparison of different types of resists in this post: How to distress furniture using a resist.

Before painting, I use a wax crayon to color over all the original green paint. The best color to use for this is clear or white, but I only could find a yellow crayon and it worked just fine. You can also use furniture wax, hemp oil, or even a small amount of Vaseline to act as a resist.

I painted two coats of paint on the oar and after it dried, I used 150 grit sandpaper to sand away the areas where I had applied the wax.

The blue paint will sand away fairly easily, allowing the original green paint to show through. Any additional wax can be removed with rubbing alcohol.

Because the address sign will be outside all year, I knew I needed to seal it with a top coat, especially since chalk paint is not water resistant. I used two coats of clear water-based polyurethan to seal the paint. (Update: I painted this oar 10 years ago and the paint is still holding up beautifully!)

Finally, I spray painted some wooden numbers from the craft store and used Liquid Nails to adhere them to the oar.  I unscrewed an extra bracket from a picture frame and attached it to the back.

There’s no missing this address now!  Here’s a look at how the DIY renovation of our lake house cottage is coming along.