DIY Lantern Makeover Tutorial

I’m excited to show you this DIY Lantern Makeover Tutorial today!

There’s something about walking through a greenhouse that is soothing to the mind.

An array of flowers, plants and in my case, even a beautiful lantern that happened to be on sale as I meandered my way through the aisles.

I contemplated buying it or not, but it was beautifully detailed and the red wood wasn’t going to sway me from not buying it.

I had it at home for quite awhile until I finally started working to give it a makeover.

It’s not that the red was ugly, but wanted to create a more rustic vibe with white tones throughout the lantern.

It was my first time attempting something like this, so it was a bit of a process, but I’ll be sharing my tips to save you time for your own lantern makeover.

Supplies Needed:

White paint
Paint brush
Wood stain
Old socks

Step 1. I removed the hardware at the top of the lantern.

Since I was in the middle of painting my kitchen cabinets, I gave the lantern a coat of white paint.

Step 2: The initial plan was to distress the paint once it was dry. However, it wasn’t looking right, something was missing.

I needed to come up with a process that would help it look authentically aged.

Step 3: I decided to use some almond spray paint over the white paint since it’s ivory (more “aged”).

Step 4: Next, when it still wasn’t to my liking, I started brainstorming.

We had some stain leftover so I used Weathered Gray and mixed it with some water, then applied it using a sock.

I applied it unevenly, applying strokes throughout to give it a true vintage look.

Finally, it was looking the way I had imagined.

The great thing about the stain technique is that, if it’s not looking as dark as you’d like, you can always add more stain back into your stain-water mix.