DIY nautical oar art

June 21, 2013

I'm sharing how I made the oar art for the recent powder room makeover -- I used this boat oar I found at a vintage mart a few months ago:

vintage boat oar redo

This little redo seriously took about 20 minutes, and that was with paint drying!

I started out by wiping it down to prep it for paint:

vintage boat oar redo

I let it dry and then mixed some white paint (I used my CeCe Caldwell stuff, but regular white paint would do just fine. Flat may work better for this particular look.) with a little bit of water:

vintage boat oar redo

I didn’t want the oar to be covered completely – I wanted it to have a “wash” kind of look and this did it:

paint mixed with water for a wash

The nice thing is when it’s watered down a bit it takes even less time to dry. :)

I let it dry about ten minutes, and then used my delicate FrogTape to start marking where I wanted my stripes:

vintage boat oar redo

That one was on the handle -- I just searched striped boat oar images and kind of winged the design.

I taped off each section, painted and took the tape off immediately. I did that just because I knew even though the paint was dry to the touch it wasn’t cured and the tape may remove it. I take my tape off right away whenever I do stripes anyway so I get a really sharp line.

I moved on to the wider part and did a little stripe first:

vintage boat oar redo

When I pulled off that tape it did pull up a little bit of the paint, but I actually liked the look so I didn’t worry about it. I didn’t want it to look perfect anyway. ;)

Then I made a wider one in the middle:

nautical stripes boat oar

You can see there that I cut the FrogTape down the middle for skinnier pieces. Since I was working so fast I didn’t want to put the tape down over the red paint I had just done – this allowed me to keep working quickly. :)

I did all the red stripes, hung the oar in the bathroom and then realized I wanted to pull in some of that blue tone in the room. I had it over at the vanity/sink, but everything around the toilet was red.

So I grabbed the blue paint I used on this post (it worked perfectly!) and added a few more skinny stripes:

nautical stripes boat oar

I gotta be honest…I squealed a little when I saw how it all finished. ;) It was so stinkin’ cute!:

nautical stripes boat oar

I think adding that little bit of blue was a good call – it ties the whole room together!

To hang it I just nailed a picture hanger thing to the back of the handle at the top.

In the real life you can see much more of the bottom of the oar because you see it from higher up than in the pics:

wood planked wall bathroom So that’s how the cutest little oar art came to be! It was super fast and I used paint I already had – the oar itself was $10. Love it!

The room isn’t exactly nautical themed but I think it still works – you don’t need to follow a specific theme to make something you love work in a room!

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Comments

  1. I love that. I have an oar at home....HMMMMMMMmmmmmm.

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  2. So cool!!! I have an old wooden oar in our garage & we live near Lake Michigan, so this would be cute in our kitchen :) I may try this, I'll add it to my list. Here's my creative blog: www.lifeaswegoit.com

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  3. WOW!! This is so cool!! You're right, it totally brings the room together. Is that black tab the flush on your toilet?! That's crazy cut if so :)

    Jess

    www.iamjessw.com

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  4. Looks great! Maybe it would be even better hung at a 45, then you could really see the whole thing and it would break up the vertical and horizontal lines in the room? Just a thought. Looks great either way, and the blue was definitely a great call.

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  5. I'm squealing with you...that IS so cute!!! Great job...your powder room is perfection!

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  6. Wow, that oar was just the perfect size! Beautiful work Sarah!

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  7. So cute!! Did you think about hanging it horizontally above the paneling? Then you could hang art that fit a little better above the toilet and tie it in with the oar. I dunno, just a thought!

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  8. Love it!! Can I ask where you found your bathroom rug? Desperately need some print/pattern in my bathroom!!!

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  9. This is a real fun project: it came out fabulously! Have a great weekend, Rose, http://www.finecraftguild.com (I wonder if you want to link it up with us at our linky party).

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  10. Your oars look great! I love painting oars :)

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  11. I love that oar so much (and the bathroom of course! - it is all so awesome). I might have to start searching Craigslist for one...

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  12. Oh how neat, I love the way the oar turned out! Thank you for the post. :)

    http://basicallybrandy.blogspot.com/

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  13. Excellent call on adding the blue stripe! I love this piece and the whole vibe of the room.

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  14. Your oar is awesome, love the colors and that you used it in your bathroom, why not? The oar looks fantastic in there. Great job gal. You'll be surprised where you'll decide to use that oar next.
    We have an Oar I used in our sunroom in our house in KY. I had a lodgy theme kinda going so used it over the french doors, loved how it looked. I just left it natural as it was, didn't snazzy it up. I've been thinking about that oar so better go looking for it. Your wonderful post inspired me.

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  15. First of all I LOVE this bathroom!!! So clean and fun! Second, I know this post is about the oar, but I NEED to know where you got that toilet flush handle!!?? I didn't even know you could change those!! So cute! Great job on this whole room. I'm in love! I would also love to know the source of that gorgeous rug! :)

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  16. Super cute oar! I just bought one for our bedroom and I'm really excited to use it :)

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  17. Love it!!! Every room can use a touch of nautical flair in my opinion!

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  18. I love the preppy and nautical feel it gives the room!

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  19. Wow! The PR looks so great! The oar is perfect, just what you needed! Love it!

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  20. What a fab piece of decor! Although I might not have used the term "stinking" in this context :)
    Helen == Firenze Cards

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  21. I want to travel to Indy just to use your bathroom. So crisp and beautiful!

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  22. Love Love..i have a nautical lvg room..always wanted to add oars!

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  23. I would squeal too; that oar is adorable! It goes so well with everything else in the room without being over the top. You rock :)

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  24. I have one that I cleaned, sanded and painted a "p" (family name) then wrapped a nice piece of rope around the handle spiraling downward loosely ending in a small spiral at the front under the "p".

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THANKS so much for reading!