How We Use Onion, Coffee, and Iron to Match 240-Year Old Wood

Who knew onion, iron and coffee could look so amazing?

It’s been a few months since we replaced the old rotted lumber with fresh beams. We are unbelievably thrilled to have these, but we, and everyone else that has been to the house has commented on how much they stick out against the original lumber. A few different neighbors asked us if we planned to stain them to match, but something about that plan didn’t feel right. We plan on this house being here for another 200-years, and we wanted the color to match in 2225, as well as 2025. We were concerned about how a synthetic stain would age over 200 years versus naturally aged/treated wood. Therefore, instead of jumping in too soon to stain the wood, we left it until we came up with a better plan.

Over the winter, we researched several different natural dyes. Though there were tones of great options, none of them seemed right for our project. One day, we came across a video on YouTube that talked about using only natural materials, not to dye, but to supercharge the aging process. It sounded like it was for us.

At the beginning of the spring, we followed the online advice, and placed a bundle of steel wool into pure distilled vinegar and waited. And waited. And waited. For a whole month, and vinegar still looked clear, and the wool, still shiny. We decided to cut our losses and try something more aggressive: two short pieces of scrap iron rebar. And within a few hours, the vinegar started to turn to that sweet amber color we were hoping for.

Originally, we were only going to use coffee and tea as our stains, as these were the two stains that were recommended on the video. But on testing day, Easter Sunday, we looked at our naturally dyed Easter eggs, and our surplus boiled onion-peel water, and thought, “why not, right?” And something about using a uniquely Slovenian method of natural dying to use on our uniquely Slovenian farmhouse felt poetic.

Testing these stains was some of the most fun we’ve had recently on the project. After months of long-term, low-impact projects, having something quick, easy and satisfying was good for the soul. And we were really enjoying the fact that the theory actually worked.

We are really happy with the result. Every time we look up at the wood, it feels like the house is really coming together.

This is the first video that we have no thank you’s. This particular project was tested and executed just by ourselves, without Ladi. But we are always grateful to Ladi anyway, so we will throw him a “Hvala” just because we love him.

Please enjoy!

CHAPTERS:

00:00 - 00:26 Introduction
00:27 - 04:51 Natural Stain Testing
04:52 - 06:57 Stain Application
06:58 - 07:39 Final Reveal