DIY Wooden American Flag – Pottery Barn Flag Hack

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HOW TO MAKE A DIY WOODEN AMERICAN FLAG THAT LOOKS JUST LIKE THE EXPENSIVE ONE THAT POTTERY BARN SELLS!

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It’s the 15th of the month today, which means it’s time for our Monthly Home Depot Gift Challenge! If you are new to this, each month a group of us bloggers gets together, and one person picks an item from Home Depot with which we have to create a gift for a specific recipient. This month, the chosen item is a 2 X 4, and the recipient is a new homeowner.

I was definitely intimidated by the chosen item this month, because I have zero woodworking skills. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that my husband does not like DIY projects, which is frustrating because when he’s motivated, he does amazing work! So, I needed to pick a project I could complete on my own.

THE POTTERY BARN WOODEN AMERICAN FLAG

After much thought, I decided to make a wooden American Flag. I’ve always loved this one from Pottery Barn, but I wasn’t willing to pay $160 for it.

 

I figured that since Home Depot will cut the wood for me, at no additional charge, this was something I could pull off without any chop saw skills.

If you wanted to save even more money, you could consider using a disassembled wood pallet to make a rustic American flag. However, I don’t believe that is high-quality wood, so we chose to buy our wood at The Home Depot.

SUPPLIES NEEDED TO MAKE YOUR OWN DIY WOODEN FLAG

For reference, our finished flag measures 35.5 X 21″, so our supply list reflects these exact measurements to make it easy!

• 3- 1X4X6’s cut in half
• 1- 1X4″6 cut into three 20.5″ pieces
• 2 ” Star decals
• Red, white, and blue paint
• Painter’s tape
• Hammer and nails (or nail gun)

Prepare your wood pieces

First, I picked the size I wanted the flag to be and calculated my measurements before I went to the store. I used 1 X 4’s instead of 2 X 4’s so the flag would be a little lighter and easier to hang. Next, I bought four of the 1 X 4 X 6’s. I had three of those cut in half, and the fourth I had cut into thirds.

Having Home Depot cut the wood for you saves time and makes this DIY wooden flag even easier. You can adjust these measurements to fit what you need. Maybe a very large flag would be better for your space.

How to assemble your wood pieces for the flag

The piece I had cut into thirds was going to be nailed to the back of the flag on each end and one in the middle. These pieces will hold all of the pieces together.

However, this is where I ran into a problem. Apparently, even though they are called 2 X 4’s, they don’t actually measure 4″. They actually measure  3.5″. Which makes no sense to me.

You should also note the depth doesn’t measure 2″ either (and that is the case for the 1″ pieces I used as well), they come in under the 2″ mark. How do people build houses with this stuff?

Because of that,  my 3 pieces for the backing were too long and needed to be further cut down. At this point, I was debating whether to use the miter box, which would’ve taken forever,  or bring them back to Home Depot for the cuts.

Luckily for me, this is when my husband became interested in this project and decided to help. It must be the American Flag thing, he’s an American flag, Chevy truck kind of guy. So he got out the chop saw and sawed off the overhang for me. When lining up the front pieces, we realized they were also out of whack; some were longer than the others, so we had to trim those pieces down as well.

After we had the pine boards laid out correctly, we used a nail gun to secure the back pieces to the front. You could also add a little wood glue for extra durability if you’d like.

painting your wooden American flag

Once it was assembled, I painted the entire flag white. I used Annie Sloan chalk paint in pure white.

Next, it was time to draw out the stars and stripes.

I started with the stripes. I needed 13 stripes divided into 21″, so they were spaced approx. 1.6″ apart. Full disclosure, this part was tricky and took a few tries to get right.

Once we had the lines drawn for the stripes, I then sectioned off a space for the stars. My box for the stars comes in about 15 3/4″ from the left and 11″ from the top. We drew that on the flag and taped it off. I picked up 2″ star decals to use for this project.

My husband suggested using the star pattern from the 1776 flag for our DIY wooden flag, which I loved. So we made ours vintage, Betsy Ross-style, for our own patriotic touch!

Once the stars were in place, I painted that section with Benjamin Moore Symphony Blue (2060-10).

I let it dry and peeled off my star decals.

 

Adding the stripes

Next, I taped off the rest of the flag to make my stripes. I used Benjamin Moore Red (2000-10) for the red stripes.

I should also mention that when I went to my local hardware store for the paint, I was planning on buying those little sample pots for this project. It turns out, Benjamin Moore has stopped making those sample pots. So I ended up buying a pint each of the red and the blue paint, which was way more than I needed.

After the red paint was dry, I removed the tape. When it was fully dry, I taped over the red and painted in the white stripes.

The last step is to give the flag a rustic look. The best way I’ve found to do this is to sand the paint down in some areas.

After letting it all dry for a full day, I went over the whole flag with a sanding sponge to give it a distressed look similar to the Pottery Barn version.

Isn’t that cool? We love how this turned out.

There are so many ways you can display rustic wooden American flags, too. You can use them indoors as wall art, hang them on a shed outside, or even prop them up in a garden bed.

What do you think about our DIY wooden American flag?

We felt this was a great gift for our gift recipient who just moved into a new home. She can now display this and show her American pride. (Update: she was very happy with her new flag.)The same friend I made the Peg Board Spice Rack for, she is loving our little DIY challenge. 🙂  

And my husband ended up enjoying this project so much that he wants to make another. He’s even thinking about making handcrafted wooden American flags for people in his spare time.

Custom wooden flags can be expensive, but with our method, he could offer them at a reasonable price. Plus, now that we’ve got the hang of it, it wouldn’t take a long time to make more.

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 MORE DIY IDEAS:

If you missed any of our previous challenges, month #1 was a copper T,  month #2 was a wooden dowel, and month #3 was a pegboard.

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MORE RED, WHITE, AND BLUE INSPIRATION!

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