Dawn Matthews | Oct 01, 2024
DIY Projects For the Home Using Our Wood
10 Minute Read
Are you considering a DIY project at the moment? Or perhaps an upcycling project that makes use of an old piece of furniture? When you’ve got lovely solid, natural wood as the material to work with, there’s a huge array of possibilities. In this post, we’re sharing inspiration for DIY and upcycling at home – as well as giving you a way out if you decide DIY isn’t for you.
Why Use Natural Wood In The Home?
We love natural wood in the home, but then we would say that, wouldn’t we?! There are two main reasons to use natural wood in the home: the way it looks and because it is a sustainable option.
Wood instantly adds warmth, character, and texture to a space, and it really is the perfect choice of material, whatever interior design style you prefer, and the grains and unique patterns of natural wood are beautiful and catch the eye. If you’re working with reclaimed wood, there’s likely to be even more features. Don’t feel you have to get rid of those old scuff marks, saw marks, and holes though – they add character, especially if you prefer a rustic aesthetic.
Apart from the fact that wood looks gorgeous, it can be an eco-friendly choice, especially if you’re using reclaimed timber. If you need new wood, then opt for responsibly grown sources like ours, which is certified sustainable Northern Scandinavian pine. Wood is hard-wearing, and can last a lifetime, reducing demand for new products.
Not only is wood aesthetically pleasing and durable, it actually gets better with age, especially when cared for properly. So, with all that in mind, it just makes sense to use wood, whether you’re creating something brand new, upcycling, or sourcing bespoke furniture for your home.
Versatile DIY And Upcycling Projects For Every Room In The Home
DIY projects don’t have to be made from scratch – upcycling furniture, or using materials that you already have is one of the most sustainable ways to DIY. Let’s take a look at some of the projects you might consider.
Kitchen
The kitchen offers plenty of opportunities for DIY projects using wood. One of the simplest is to add wooden shelves. We’ve spoken about adding wooden shelves around the home plenty of times, but in the kitchen they’re a great way to add extra storage. Our bracket shelves are perfectly rustic, but if you want a sleeker look, a floating shelf is the way forward. Shelves are ideal both on display or hidden away, such as in your pantry cupboard.
And if you still need a little extra storage, once you’ve fixed your shelf to the wall, you can add accessories to give you that additional space. Our metal wine glass rack frees cupboard space while keeping glasses easily available, while a metal hanging rail gives you plenty of options for hanging tea towels, or to use S-hooks for hanging utensils.
Want more DIY projects for the kitchen? Here’s five ways to add storage to your kitchen.
Bathroom
Are you looking for an easy DIY using wood? If you’ve got a small amount of wood left over from another project, you can’t get much simpler than a bath caddy made from rustic, or reclaimed wood. Simply measure the width of your bath, measure and cut, before sanding and treating your wood. You can keep it simple, like ours, or add supports for your book, eReader, or glass of wine, depending on how long you love to soak for.
If adding a wooden shelf is the right project for you – perhaps to hold towels to create that spa-like ambience, or purely for holding toiletries or cosmetics – then our pipe shelves with hanging rails could be the perfect little DIY project. Made from our rustic oak, the industrial-looking pipe bracket looks totally at home in a bathroom. And while our glass storage jars are designed for the pantry, they’re ideal for holding reusable makeup remover pads in the bathroom too.
Since the humidity is high in bathrooms, be certain to use the right wood finish, and to maintain it by refinishing it when necessary to keep it in perfect shape. You can find more inspiration for bathrooms in our blog The Ultimate Guide to Bathroom Storage Ideas.
Living room
A great DIY project for the living room that is often simpler than it seems is to add a rustic wooden mantel to your fireplace. If you’re considering a wood burning stove, or just have a gorgeous fireplace, a wooden mantel is the perfect addition to frame it and make it (visually, even if it isn’t actually) the centre of the space. Once installed, you can style it however feels right – whether that’s with plants, with artwork, vases, or with Christmas decorations in December. Read more about how to decorate your fireplace mantel and surround in our blog.
Bedroom
While many of us don’t have a lot of time for getting ready in the mornings, there’s something incredibly luxurious about having a dressing table that you can sit at to apply your make up. If your bedroom is rustic in style, then this makes for a lovely project for upcycling. Maybe you’ve inherited a piece, or stumbled on the perfect size dressing table in a second hand store. Strip off the old wood finish, and refinish it with the perfect wax finish, or paint to match the rest of your bedroom. Once you’ve finished it, style it up – whether you’re hiding your hair and makeup products in a wooden box, or you want them on display, finish it with a gorgeous mirror and either a chair or stool to match.
Home office
The right DIY project for the home office depends on the space you have available and the design of the room. If you’ve got a dedicated room, and you’ve got a desk already, think about what else could be useful? We’ve already spoken about wooden shelves, so we won’t go over that again, but a small project could be a wooden desk organiser that’s bespoke to your needs. Using reclaimed wood to upcycle, or offcuts, you can create the perfect compartments for your essentials. Don’t forget to leave holes for your chargers!
If you’ve only got a tiny corner of a room to dedicate to a home office, then you might consider using a wide wooden shelf – maybe made from reclaimed wood – as a spot for your laptop when you’re working at home. Choose some nice strong brackets, and fix the shelf to the right height for you (just over 70cm is the standard desk height) – then all you need is a comfortable chair.
Garden
Gardens are full of possibilities for upcycles and DIY projects! We’ve spoken extensively about different ideas for the garden, and so rather than going over the same things again, we thought we’d share the following posts as inspiration to get you started.
⏺ Building an outdoor kitchen
⏺ Accessories for garden kitchens
⏺ Creating a herb garden
⏺ Adding garden storage
⏺ Maybe a little outdoor coffee table?
⏺ Home office in the garden
As with bathroom projects using wood, when you’re creating something for the garden, make sure you use the right wood finish. The British weather can be pretty harsh, both in terms of the summer sun, and frosts that can cause damage in the winter. If you can, be sure to store your wooden furniture and accessories away in the colder months.
What if DIY isn’t my thing?
We get it – DIY isn’t for everyone. If that’s you, for whatever reason; maybe you don’t have the time, the space, the right tools, or you simply don’t have the inclination, we’ve added links to our products throughout our post, so if you don’t want to DIY, you don’t have to! You can even tell people you made it – we’ll never tell!
Our entire range of wooden furniture is made to order, and so if getting a saw out to trim a shelf down doesn’t sound like your idea of fun, no problem. Simply choose the item that’s the closest size to what you want, and when you’re placing your order, add the size you want to the order notes. We’ll create your new piece and send it out to you.
If you’re embarking on an entirely bespoke project that isn’t like anything we have on our website, get in touch. There’s a good chance we can help – and we’ll certainly do our best to work with y30ou to create what you’re looking for.
Our Final Thoughts
While we’ve shared some great ideas in this post, you’ll find thousands, if not millions of unique projects to inspire you online. If you’re stuck for how to upcycle an old piece of furniture, try searching for similar things. We’d be willing to bet that you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for on Pinterest or Instagram. Speaking of Instagram, when you’ve finished your project, whether you’ve sanded, painted, or completely reworked an old piece of furniture, or made something from scratch, make sure you tag us – we’re @bensimpsonfurniture.
