DIY Wooden Home Decor: Where To Start Making Wood Decoration Yourself

What decorations can you make of wood and how to choose the right wood for them?

This article is not a complete guide to making DIY interior decorations – from drying (wood blanks) to finishing. Of course, it is very important to choose the proper material, dry the wood, know how to saw, what chisel to buy, where to read about drying and varnishes. But first you must know what you (as a starting craftsman) can do: the kind of wood decorations to fit not only a country house. This is what we want to focus on here. So, let’s start.

Rustic wooden home decor

If you just start working with wood and think about creating your own wood furniture or decorations, you probably can’t make traditional classical items. There are styles that require impeccable performance – you can do them somehow, but you must practice more than a year to become a professional wood carver.

But there is rustic – a simple style endowing the beauty and naturalness of the roughly-processed wood (it will fit both in the kitchen and living room interior). Cracks, knots and “hitches” are not flaws here, but aesthetics elements. Therefore, rustic wood crafts can be made not only by experienced masters but also beginners. The slogan “do it yourself at home” perfectly fits this style.

Reclaimed wood furniture and decor

Another style accessible to beginners is working with the so-called reclaimed wood. Reclaimed wood is wood that was already used by people, but, most importantly, it can still be used by them. Indeed, if you are working with raw wood, you must first dry it, cut it and prepare it. If you are working with reclaimed wood, it is already dried up, processed and will unlikely crumble and crack.

The idea of reclaiming wood is more urgent today than ever. Mankind already feels suffocating from plastic, glass, and concrete, being increasingly surrounded with an environment, instead of nature; we realized that the re-use of wood saves living trees from cutting, that is why recycling, refurbishing and other “re” as a sign of processed products have become widespread.

Experienced designers have long understood the worth of old wood. Today, a table made of a cable reel or disassembled pallets is no longer a sign of poverty, but creativity and imagination in the space design.

Suddenly it became clear that slats from wooden boxes for glass containers are a godsend, boards soaked in salty ocean water are more beautiful than boards coming directly from the sawmill, wooden skis of our grandmothers can be used not only for lighting a fire in a fireplace, but also for making lamps, furniture – they can be a decor element even just nailed to a wall. Interesting DIY wood crafts can be made from anything!

Tip: Old wood is good not only for making furniture – take it as a finishing material. If you have an old, graying shed or you replace fencing wood at your summer cottage with modern materials, do not rush to throw out this wood. In this photo, you can see an unusual bedroom design with not the panel of the bed head made of reclaimed boards, but the space around it.

History is meant to be proud of. In the interior, this is called “multi-layering”. That is why designers not only don’t remove traces of old wood paint but seem to be proud of the fact that the wood once lived its own life. Agree that such aesthetics is radically different from the principle of “make fencing on construction sites from natural wood and make furniture from chipboard.”

Search for ideas

Sometimes someone else’s idea suggests another idea that can be developed in a new way in your own item. Moreover, when working with “forest products”, all items are unique and can be “read” differently even one subject.

Some ideas are “in the air”. I found at least a dozen examples of how to make a mirror frame from a burnt or rotted from inside tree.

I have a similar and at the same time different design. My frame is made of completely waste material – a stump left on the cutting of trees eaten by the bark beetle.