When we first moved here four years ago we named the house 'Manderley' from the classic book Rebecca. [Spoilers] Yes, in the book Manderley burns down. It wasn't my decision to call our house after that! But it's still a very pretty name.
I wanted a sort of rustic aesthetic. I began with a bare plank of wood that I acquired when some builders were doing some work around the place. The guy was nice enough to sand it down for me which created a great smooth surface to work on.
I kept reading on the internet that it is important to pre-treat the wood, but I skipped this step. If you want to do this professionally, then I suggest you research elsewhere for pretreatments. I used white acrylic paint to cover the surface with two coats and then mixed the white with blue to create a pale vintage colour for the lettering. After the lettering dried I went over the letters with a smaller brush to fix up any wobbly lines.
For the lettering I used Script MT Bold font on a word document, then printed it out and cut it out to create a stencil. I penciled in the lettering and then painted over.
I also downloaded a leafy design and used the same method for painting around the edges.
There's still some post-treatments to do to protect it from the elements as it will be sitting outside for years to come, so I will try to remember to take pictures when it is up on our house!
-AlbusOwner
