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We recently shared our tiny RV kitchen remodel, and I’ve received a lot of questions about the mountain wall art we hung up above the stove.

DIY Mountain Art in Tiny RV Kitchen | MountainModernLife.com

I’m here to tell you that this sign was crazy easy to make! Sure it’s far from perfect, but I’m learning to embrace imperfection these days 🙂

How to Make Mountain Wall Art

After we installed our wood planked backsplash I thought it would be fun to add some wall art behind the oven, but I didn’t want to use any “typical” kitchen wall art.  I tossed around some ideas before deciding a silhouette of mountains would be perfect.

You may have noticed a few of our RV projects were created using reclaimed cypress boards, including our horseshoe bathroom shelves, rustic wall sconces, and bedroom slide out trim. These boards are over 100 years old, which is awesome, but the fact that they’re super lightweight made them a no-brainer for our RV.

This is another project we created from the stack of reclaimed wood we picked up from my buddy Steve who owns Memory Mountain, the cabin resort we were married at, a few years ago.

There are several ways to create your own wooden sign, which you can find if you visit our DIY project gallery. For this project, I decided to keep things extra simple by free-handing the design in chalk and then painting over it.

  • Wood Board
  • Lath Wood (for frame)
  • Chalk
  • Paint
  • Craft detail Paint Brush
  • Small Paint Brush
  • Sandpaper
  • Clear Wax
  • Compound Miter Saw
  • Nailgun

The first thing we did was determine the size we wanted the wooden sign to be.  It was slim pickings at this point as we were running low on cypress, but luckily we had a board that worked.

If you don’t have any reclaimed or scrap wood, you can pick up a new board from your local hardware store, and have them cut it down to size for you.

See how easy it is to create this mountain wall art using reclaimed wood. | MountainModernLife.com

Grab some chalk

Next, I looked at an image of the mountains that I had from a vector pack I purchased a while ago. With the image up on my computer as a reference, I drew them onto my wooden board using a piece of chalk. You may notice they’re the same mountains I used for our logo.

Don’t worry about them looking perfect because you’ll distress them later. Seriously, don’t stress if they look funky, mine were far from perfect!

However, if you’re feeling nervous about this step or it doesn’t turn out the way you want, you can always print the design you want using an inkjet printer, and follow this method to transfer your design onto your wooden board.

See how easy it is to create this mountain wall art using reclaimed wood. | MountainModernLife.com

This is what my board looked like with the mountains drawn on using chalk. At this stage, you can wet a rag and wipe your board clean to restart or wet a Qtip to refine your design. This is basically your design blueprint that you’ll be painting on top of.

See how easy it is to create this mountain wall art using reclaimed wood. | MountainModernLife.com

Time to Paint

Once you have the design the way you want you can grab some paint, I used leftover white paint and some detail paintbrushes. Begin painting over your chalk with your paint.

I like to use a paper plate or something I can wrap with foil and pour a little paint onto the foil. I’ll then dip my paintbrush into the paint, mix it with a little water and then paint onto my wooden board. It goes on a lot smoother this way. Just make sure you don’t add too much water, otherwise, it becomes runny.

See how easy it is to create this mountain wall art using reclaimed wood. | MountainModernLife.com

This is what my board looked like once I painted over my chalk mountains, I think I painted over them twice.

Yeah, I know it looks pretty rough, haha.
See how easy it is to create this mountain wall art using reclaimed wood. | MountainModernLife.com

Once the paint was dry I sanded over my board, focusing on some areas more than others. This is why I love sandpaper, it will give the mountains a distressed look and it won’t matter that they don’t look perfect.

See how easy it is to create this mountain wall art using reclaimed wood. | MountainModernLife.com

I think I used 220 grit sandpaper. You don’t want to completely remove the paint but want to scrape away some of it. But don’t worry if you accidentally over-sand because you can always go back in with more paint, then lightly sand the board again until you get the look you want.

See how easy it is to create this mountain wall art using reclaimed wood. | MountainModernLife.com

Once my board was painted, sanded, and dry I went over it with some clear wax.

See how easy it is to create this mountain wall art using reclaimed wood. | MountainModernLife.com

Onto the Frame

I then got to work on the frame, which was made out of leftover lath wood. This wood is thin and lightweight, which is why I’m such a fan.

See how easy it is to create this mountain wall art using reclaimed wood. | MountainModernLife.com

With the lath wood cut to size, I painted them with carbon chalk paint, the same color used on our two-toned kitchen cabinets.

See how easy it is to create this mountain wall art using reclaimed wood. | MountainModernLife.com

Once dry I waxed those as well and then attached them to the edge of the cypress board using our nailgun <—favorite tool EVER! Eric helped me hold the sign while we nailed the frame into place.

See how easy it is to create this mountain wall art using reclaimed wood. | MountainModernLife.com

This is what it looks like all finished:

See how easy it is to create this mountain wall art using reclaimed wood. | MountainModernLife.com

See how easy it is to create this mountain wall art using reclaimed wood. | MountainModernLife.com

How to make mountain wall art | MountainModernLife.com

Again, it’s not perfect, but I love how simple and rustic it is, not to mention how easy it was to make!

So what do you think?

How to make mountain wall art | MountainModernLife.com
How to Make Mountain Wall Art

7 Comments

  1. Hi Katie! I looove this idea for making unique homemade art so much that I made my own. Now, I’m not sure how to mount it on a wall with enough support but without doing too much damage to the wall. Any ideas? How did you hang yours up?

    1. That’s awesome Zofia! We just used 2 D-ring hooks, but you can use any picture hanging hardware or even command hanging strips 🙂

      Katie

  2. This is honestly the item that has stood out most to me. I am obsessed with the mountains so when I see this online or pinterest I always stop and take a closer look it is so cute!

  3. Could you poly a water based food safe poly over the top of mountains with 1×2 sides and use as serving tray to carry goodies to outside fire pit or picnic goods?

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