How to Distress Stained Wood Siding

Distressing stained wood siding can make your home, shed or outbuilding look old, weathered and traditional. Distressing wood siding on new additions to your property will make them fit better with your weathered home and can reveal the beauty of the wood underneath while maintaining a stained finish. Use techniques that will distress the wood without causing structural damage, and use random processes that will ensure people don’t notice your siding was intentionally weathered.

Heavy chain
Scrap wood
Nails
Coarse-grit sandpaper
Hammer
Chisel
Awl

Instructions

- 1
  Hammer nails at random angles and positions into a piece of scrap wood. Hammer them all of the way through the wood so that they all poke out on one side. The nails should not appear balanced and they should certainly not be evenly spaced. You want natural and random spacing.
- 2
  Rub the scrap wood over the siding to scratch the siding in several random places. Use a ladder to reach high areas, but make sure there are fewer scratches up high than down low, as natural wood siding would naturally weather less under the eaves.
- 3
  Rub coarse-grit sandpaper over the siding to distress the stain and remove some of it. Pay special attention to corners, as these would wear faster than other areas.
- 4
  Slap a heavy chain against the wood siding. This will wear off some of the stain and will dent and dimple the wood. Do this at random points around the siding.
- 5
  Hammer a chisel or awl into several areas around the house to make the wood look old and damaged. These marks can also resemble insect damage.

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