DIY Modern Farmhouse Sign- HOME

Sometimes in order to make the most of what we have it requires a little creativity. I am by no means an artist but it did take some creativity to make this DIY modern farmhouse sign for our dining room.

The modern farmhouse style is my favorite and I have been trying to come up with more DIY projects to incorporate into our home. I made some smaller DIY modern farmhouse signs a couple weeks ago and finally got some inspiration to create this larger DIY modern farmhouse sign.

Usually my inspiration for my DIY home decor projects comes from seeing someone else’s beautiful store bought masterpiece. I duplicate it, but I add my own twist on the piece.

I like to make my home decor as budget-friendly as possible. When I feel like I can make something cheaper than the purchase price, I definitely take that route.

I usually feel that way when it comes to home decor signs. They can get pretty pricey and while I repeat, I am not an artist, I do have enough artistic skills to conjure up some creations for our home.

This DIY modern farmhouse sign was so much easier than I thought it was going to be. And you don’t have to be an artist to be able to do it!

I’m not going to do a step-by-step process on how I did it. It’s such a simple project that I don’t feel like it needs steps. But I will give you tips and tricks I learned along the way, plus the measurements of everything in case you want to make it the same way I did.

DIY Modern Farmhouse Sign

The Border

If you haven’t noticed, most farmhouse/modern farmhouse home decor signs all have a wooden border. I used a canvas board for this DIY modern farmhouse sign which doesn’t have a wooden border. But I still wanted that look so I decided to paint a border that looked similar to wood.

A trick I’ve seen: The canvas board itself has a wood frame underneath and then it’s covered with a canvas mat. I have seen some people take off the canvas mat and reattach it so the wooden frame is on top with the canvas laying on the bottom.

I haven’t personally tried this myself so I couldn’t tell you how to do it or how well it holds up, but I’m sure you could find something on Pinterest teaching you how to do it if you really want the wooden border.

For this DIY modern farmhouse sign, I painted a one inch border using brown, white and black acrylic paint. I didn’t want to make it look exactly like wood, but I did want it to have some texture so that it would resemble a wooden frame.

I used painter’s tape to make it easier to paint the border and not have to worry about staying in the lines. It didn’t make the lines perfect and I did have to touch up the lines after I pulled the tape off, but I would do it again for sure.

I used the brown paint as a base and then with the same paint brush would dip into the white and black paint every now and then and add it to the brown base blending them together as I went along.

This isn’t where perfectionism comes to hangout, by the way. Have you ever looked at wood? No two parts are the same and the beauty of it is in the imperfections. (Had to mention this because this is what I had to keep telling myself while I was painting. Any other perfectionists out there with me?)

The Letters

I am a perfectionist. But I will say, sometimes my laziness trumps my perfectionism. I probably should’ve measured all the letters for this DIY modern farmhouse sign and made sure they were the correct sizes, but I eye-balled most of it. H and M I measured because I started with those, but I got lazy with O and E.

I measured everything for you though so that you could take the smarter route. All the measurements are on the pictures below.

Tip: Before you even draw your letters on, take white paint and paint the canvas white. I know this sounds silly if you’re planning on keeping the background white, but you’ll thank me later.

3 reasons why I say this (and I have learned the hard way of not doing this over the years).

Pencil doesn’t erase well on canvas. So unless you draw your letters perfectly the first time then you are going to be left with half erased pencil markings. You can try to just paint over them with white paint. But trust me, even though you’re painting white on white, if you’re canvas is naked then it will show.
It’s like priming the canvas board. Paint glides better on top of the other paint than it does on the canvas. So when you go to paint your letters, it will be easier to paint them on a canvas that is already painted.
If you make a mistake painting the letters, you can just take the white paint and fix it.

When it comes to painting the letters, slow and steady is the key. I just drew a line of each letter and then free hand painted the lines thicker. If you want to be more precise, you can make your lines thicker first or there might be stencils available online.

Sorry, no special trick for this part! If you make mistakes, you can just fix it with the white paint. This was the most challenging part. I definitely made some mistakes and I’m sure some lines are thicker than others. But overall, I think it came out well.

Conclusion

I have this DIY modern farmhouse sign in my dining room/living room. I think it is the perfect touch that I was looking for. The border on the sign matches our dining room table almost perfectly.