Barn wood range hood cover – the finishing touch

Finishing a wood range hood cover with pure tung oil helps to protect the surface while creating deeper and richer wood tones. Plus, it’s an easy and quick DIY kitchen project.

I’m a bit of project bundler.

I figure if I’m tackling a home project, I may as well try to bundle it with a few other things. It’s like efficiency. Or sometimes just insanity.

For example:

• If I’m painting something white, I figure I may as well touch up all the trim in the house.
• If I’m going to paint the shelves in the pantry, I may as well wait until I have to paint all the shelves in the whole house.
• Or if I’m re-oiling our walnut butcher block island, I could just tung oil all the things. Nothing wood is safe.

An aside: This tendency also extends to other habits – like spending 20 minutes scouring the house for anything that needs to go upstairs and then loading myself like a pack mule instead of just taking a few trips like a normal person. That 15 stairs is rough, yo.

All that to say, I didn’t stop at the butcher block island. I also decided to use pure tung oil on the barn wood range hood cover that Ryan built for the kitchen. And it was just the little bit of finishing it needed.

So if you are tired about hearing about my love for pure tung oil, sorry. It’s still going strong.

Why oil the wood range hood cover?

It would have been fairly simple to leave the range hood as-is. It looked great. But the wood was looking a little dull and dry – it was 100-year-old barn wood after all. And I wanted to be sure that it was protected so it looks great for years to come.

The pure tung oil was a perfect fit – a few coats made the wood tones even deeper and richer. It gave the dry barn wood a lot of depth. It also gives it some basic protection from splatters or other things that could damage the wood. But it didn’t change the color  – which is what I loved so much about the DIY range hood. It could darken over time, but that’s okay by me.

How do I use pure tung oil on a vertical surface?

The process to oil the wood range hood cover is just as simple as oiling the countertops.

I started by rubbing pure tung oil into the wood with a clean cloth (mixed 50-50 with citrus solvent). After the oil soaks in, do another coat. I ended up doing three coats of oil and then I just buffed off any excess.  You can see how it immediately darkened the wood, but still had the same overall tone.

In other words, tung oil won’t make your wood look completely different – it just gives it some depth and enriches what you have.

Just a small project – but it makes a difference to the entire space.  Those “finishing” touches are easy to put off. But once you do it, you will only wish you’d done it sooner. (It’s attuned to my “better over perfect” mantra, which I know many of you love.)

The best part is that adding some oil made all the wood tones really come together.

I love the varying types of wood in our kitchen – from pine floors, to yellow pine car siding on the island, to walnut butcher block, to the barn wood range hood cover.

While the tones are different, it feels cozy and layered. And it feels intentional – which, I guess it was.

What’s the last project you bundled in your home?

(Or are you a normal person who does things one at a time? I won’t judge.)

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