Another Pottery Barn Copy Cat & A Field Trip

Last night my baby slept all night in her new room- ALL NIGHT! I should feel rested, energized, ready to face the day... Only, I stayed up til 1:00am fixing my newest project. This one has been a toughy- not because it's difficult, just because. It all started when the new pottery barn catalog arrived. See the clock face in the background? Not for sale. At least not at this time. Pottery Barn often squeezes in cool stuff that's not for sale- but occasionally it will show up at a later time- The game wheel in the current catalog originally showed up a few months ago and was not for sale. But enough about me stalking Pottery Barn.

I thought the clock must be a clock face mounted to a piece of wood until I turned a few pages and saw this picture.

Could it really just be painted on a piece of sheet metal? All night I dreamed of how I could replicate this industrial looking time piece. When I woke up I told Mr. Right, "There must be a salvage yard somewhere, where I can get a piece of sheet metal." Here comes the field trip. Davis Salvage and Metals in Phoenix. If you're not familiar it's a must visit.

Here's a glimpse of one small part of the yard. Steel everywhere. Mr. Right thought he was going to have to dig for the perfect piece until a nice man let us know they had pieces of sheet metal neatly standing on end at the back of the yard.
We picked out our piece and then weighed it on this really cool scale. .70 a pound. Ours weighed 30 pounds. Now the piece we picked out was 48 x 46. I knew the PB clock had to be around 46 inches square because the table it's pictured on is 48 inches long. So we opted to have it cut to a perfect square.
Here's the amazing cutter machine (I'm sure there's a more technical name, but I don't know it) The guy measured several different times, pushed a button and voila! A perfectly square piece of rusty sheet metal. Total $26
Finally, I can begin the clock. First I painted a coat of black paint- I'm not sure why- but it did prove to be a good thing when distressing it. Next came a coat of creamy white.
Now for the perfect circle. I used a screw, string and a pencil. After determining the perfect center my daughter held the screw in place while I traced the circle- this does not have to be perfect. I painted it black, then took a hammer to do some distressing.
Next, I cut out my roman numerals on my Cricut- This is just Times New Roman I, V, and X. I used the reverse as a stencil. You can kind of see the distress marks from the hammer. (Does anyone see the mistake I made?)
After setting the clock out in the weather for 10 days, to get it to rust, I discovered I made a big mistake. Look at the nine- now look where the eleven should be- OOPs another nine. I must have flipped my stencil. No biggie, just a little sanding, cut new stencil and reapply.
I was fairly happy with the rusting that was coming through the paint, but wanted to speed up the process. I sprayed it with vinegar, dug deeper gouges with a screw driver and wet it down several times a day. It helped a little, but then I remembered that 2 inch strip they cut off the original piece of sheet metal. Maybe if it rub that over the face of the clock the rust will transfer- Yep, it worked. Now my clock was ready for display, or so I thought. When Mr. Right leaned the clock on the fireplace (where I thought it was going) I didn't like it at all. I didn't realize how big an almost 4x4 clock would look in my 8 foot high ceiling house. So he moved it to rest on our sofa table- no good there either. I thought I found a wall in the TV room that might work, but as we walked with the clock through the kitchen I thought, maybe it should go here. We removed the antique window that was on display and decided it just might work. After drilling into my beadboard to hang the clock I didn't have the heart to tell Mr. Right I wasn't really liking it in the kitchen either. He was headed out of town so I said, "Thank you, it's perfect" and figured I could move it while he was gone. Well, at 11:00pm last night, after I finished visiting with Laura, I decided to figure out how I could fix my clock. Turns out all it needed was a little more distressing- okay, a lot a more distressing. I sanded away making the numbers and circle more muted and then applied a Ralph Lauren faux finish- Tobacco. Here she is...
I'm not 100% sure she'll stay in the kitchen, but when I woke up this morning I really liked the way she looked. Here's an upclose.
Let me know what you think? Should she stay in the kitchen? Also, take a look at Alchemy Junk's version. I was a little sad when I found out someone else also stalks Pottery Barn, while I was waiting for my clock to rust, they whipped one out using wood and Faux finishing- beautiful. Hope you've enjoyed. Love, Kelly

Linking Up to:

Remodelaholics anonymous at Remodelaholic

Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulous

Furniture feature friday at Miss Mustard Seed’s

Saturday nite Special at Funky Junk Interiors