Sometimes it can be a little bit tricky to find the perfect piece of art to fit a specific wall space in your home, or if you do find the perfect piece, it can be pretty darn expensive! If this is the case, than you might be better off to just DIY it!!!

I’d been searching high and low for the perfect pieces of tin to hang on the giant wall behind the couch in my living room… and finally, I found them! You could actually say that I’ve been searching for a couple of years now, checking local antique shops and flea markets on a regular basis. The actual product change-over rate in these places can sometimes be slow, but they are always getting new things in, so you just have to be patient and keep on checking!

They wanted $25 per panel, so I picked out the four best ones (in my opinion), and made a deal to take the four for $80.00 — Total Score!! This is what they looked like… A little rough, but lots of great potential!

The first thing that I did was flatten them out by placing a concrete block on them and pressing down. This actually helped to chip off some of the old paint too!

Next I took a wire brush and removed the rest of the old chippy paint! Then I used some good ol’ WD40 and a rag to polish them up.

I then used chalk paint to coat my tin panels.

Warning! I was aiming for the old, distressed look, so the WD40 actually worked out in my favor. It caused the paint to to peel up a bit on some areas of my tin panels. So if you’re going for the distressed look, go ahead and use the WD40, but if not, I would NOT recommend using it! (You can see in the below picture where it is starting to peel up.)

After my paint was dry, I took some coarse sand paper, and went-a-sandin’!

I just played around with it until I got the desired look!

I must say that I am absolutely thrilled with the end result! It is the perfect fit for my wall, and even though it took a very long time to find the perfect pieces, it really only took one afternoon to complete the entire project!