In this post, I’m sharing how to make a DIY wooden lazy Susan from a single 2×4 board!

I’ve been making and giving these as gifts for years and everyone always loves them. They’re easy and inexpensive to make and can be customized with an initial or shape!

.*This post contains affiliate links. See website policies.

What to consider before building a wooden Lazy Susan

This wooden lazy Susan is a simple project and can be assembled and cut many different ways.

If you didn’t have the tools needed or are running low on time, you can purchase a precut wooden round for this instead of making your own. Using a precut round allows you to skip all the cutting and sanding and simply stain/finish and add a lazy Susan to the bottom.

But, if you already have the tools, creating your own wooden round allows you to customize the size and wood type and saves quite a bit of money as precut rounds can be a bit pricey.

Wood Type

For this project, I used a basic 2x4x8 construction board from Home Depot. Depending on where you live, you typically find 2x4s in pine, spruce, or fir. These are common softwoods and are fairly inexpensive.

RELATED: How to buy lumber

However, if you preferred something different, any wood type would work fine for this simple DIY.

To make these wooden lazy Susans, I rip my lumber into 1 ½″ x 1 ½″ squares on the table saw (these are 2x2s). Then, I glue them back up.

RELATED: How to cut 2x2s from a 2×4

I know this may seem silly and unnecessary, BUT there are a couple of reasons I do it this way:

• Wider boards are more likely to have cups, bows, or twists, which makes glue ups more challenging. Ripping them into smaller pieces makes it easier to get a flat panel.
• These smaller pieces when glued together look more like butcherblock to give it more character.

Overall, this is really about looks, so if you wanted to just use wider boards, feel free.

Cutting a Perfect Wooden Circle

Once the panel is glued up in step 1, it needs to be cut in a circle. You can cut a perfect wooden circle with a router and a straight bit using an easy DIY circle jig.

If you don’t have a router (or you don’t like using one), this post shows you how to draw any size circle and once it’s drawn, you can simply follow the line with a jig or band saw to cut it out.

Cutting the circle with a router is usually a little more accurate than using a jig saw, but it does take a little longer.

Typically, I use my router to cut a few shallow passes to give me my perfect circle shape, then, I’ll cut the remaining material using a jig saw and smooth it out with a router and a flush cut bit.

Learn how to cut perfect wooden circles in this post.

Customizing your Project

You can customize these in a hundred different ways. Here are a few easy ways you may consider making them your own:

• Use different wood types in contrasting colors
  • Instead of gluing up pieces of the same wood type to make your circle, consider using two different types (like maple and walnut) for contrast.
• Change up the size
  • I made these about 14″ diameter, but feel free to make them bigger or smaller to fit your needs.
• Add an initial or a shape
  • Use a Cricut or vinyl cutter to cut a stencil for staining or use a CNC or router to carve a design on top.
• Add a decorative trim piece around the outside
  • Add a metal band around the outside for an industrial look (see step 4 below)

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How to make a wooden lazy Susan

I’m sharing the steps below to make a this wooden lazy Susan, but if you prefer to watch, I’ve also got a video tutorial here as well.

Tools & Materials

Step 1: Glue up Wooden Panel

To kick off this project, I started my cutting down my 2×4 into strips to glue into a panel (see notes above).

First, I ripped about 3/16″ off the edge of the board to give me a nice square edge to start with. (See step 4 for an idea to reuse this ~⅛″ thick strip that’s left!)

Then, I ripped this board into two 1 ½″ wide strips on the table saw. This essentially gave me two 2x2s with nice square edges.

RELATED: How to square board edges and cut 2x2s.

Again, the reason I ripped this into thinner strips to glue back up was mostly for aesthetics–you can simply glue up wider boards if you want.

Then, I cut these 2x2s down into 10 pieces about 16″ long on the miter saw.

I grabbed a couple pipe clamps and glued these 10 boards together into a panel, keeping the pieces as flat as possible while clamping.

This gave me a 1 ½″ thick panel roughly 15″ x 16″. I allowed the glue to cure before moving on.

Step 2: Cut Wooden Circle

Once the panel from step 1 was dry, I cut a 14″ diameter circle from it. As I mentioned above, you can draw a circle and cut this out with a jig saw or band saw.

But I opted to cut it first using a router. First, I flipped this panel upside down and found the center.

Then I drilled a hole (and left the drill bit in it) in the center to pivot my router and circle jig on. See this post on how to make and use a circle jig with your router.

I used a straight bit in my router to make a few shallow passes in the panel to give me my circle shape.

Then, I cut the rest of the material with a jig saw to save some time.

I cleaned up the edges with a flush cut bit in my router, then sanded the panel nice and smooth.

RELATED: How to sand wood

Step 3: Attach Lazy Susan Hardware

After the lazy Susan circle was cut and sanded, I flipped it upside down and centered a 6″ lazy Susan on it like shown below.

I secured this to the bottom using four 1 ¼″ wood screws through the holes in the hardware.

NOTE: If you’d like, add some rubber feet to the corners of the hardware so that when you flip it over, it stays in place and doesn’t scratch the surface of whatever you set it on.

Step 4: Finish and Add Customizations

Now it’s time to finish the wooden round. I mentioned earlier there are several ways to customize/personalize this and one of them is a stencil to add a shape or initial.

In this case, I used my Cricut Explore 3 to cut a simple Kentucky shape on some black vinyl to use as a staining stencil.

I placed this in the center of my lazy Susan, then stained around it with Minwax Provincial wood stain.

Once the stain was dry, I removed the stencil to reveal the state. You could do this same thing for a monogram, a quote, or another state or shape.

After the stain dried, I applied a few coats of Minwax Helmsman clear coat to seal it.

At this point, it’s ready for use! These would be great on a desk, on a coffee table, as a centerpiece, a serving tray–so many options!

Adding an optional metal band

I have been making these for years and some of my early ones also had one more unique feature/customization you may consider adding–a metal (or faux metal) band around the outside. You can make this from actual metal or from wood.

To do this with wood, I used my table saw to rip an ⅛” (or slightly thinner) wide wood strip off some scrap 2x material that I had around the shop. It needs to be long enough to wrap around the edge of the wooden round–about 44″ long for a 14″ diameter circle.

This strip will be challenging to bend smoothly without cracking. I recommend soaking the strip in water (I literally soaked it in my bathtub) overnight, then take it out and CAREFULLY bend it into a circle and clamp the ends together until it’s dry.

OR, if you’re having trouble with that, you could also use 1 ½″ wide edge banding instead and it won’t require soaking. It’s much thinner, so it’s much easier to bend.

OR, skip the wood altogether and use actual metal. You can find ⅛″ thick x 1 ½″ wide flat stock steel or aluminum in most big box stores or local metal shops. This will bend a lot smoother (especially if you heat it with a torch) than a wood strip.

Check out this tutorial for how I bent a metal band in a circle if you want to try this with metal.

I painted my strip with oil rubbed bronze spray paint so it looked like metal.

Once the paint was dry, I added some wood glue to the back and used a staple gun to staple it around the edge of the round.

I tried to space the staples evenly around the edge. (NOTE: If using metal, you’ll need to drill holes and use screws instead of staples here to secure.)

Then, I used a hammer and some decorative nail heads to cover the staples.

This DIY wooden lazy Susan looks great with or without the band and makes such a great handmade gift for Christmas, weddings, housewarmings, or any special occasion.

Looking for more Handmade Gift Ideas?

With the upcoming holidays, I’ve teamed up with my friend, Kati, from Houseful of Handmade to share some easy and fun gift ideas you can make this season!

I’ve included our gift ideas in the gallery below (click on the images to see how to make each one). Each day between November 18-22, we will be adding more projects to the list so keep an eye out!

If you enjoyed this project and want to save it for later, don’t forget to pin it or share to your favorite social channel!

Until next time, friends, happy building!

In this post, I’m sharing how to make a simple DIY modern serving tray with handles!

This eight sided design is modern, classy and easy to make from scrap wood you probably already have in your shop!

After you make one for yourself, try a second one to give away. This serving tray is the perfect handmade gift idea for Christmas, weddings, and housewarmings!

Learn how to make it in the plans below.

*This post contains affiliate links. See website policies.

What to know before building

This DIY modern serving tray project is simple and easy to customize the size. Basically, you cut the bottom panel for your tray and then you cut to fit the sides around it.

So feel free to modify your tray size as desired–the steps wouldn’t change.

What kind of wood do you need?

You can make this modern tray from any wood species you’d like. In my case, I used walnut.

All you need to build the tray is a scrap piece of ¾″ plywood (roughly 12″ x 18″–or whatever size you’d like your tray) and some 1x material (FYI 1x material is just ¾″ thick lumber–any width is fine).

I ripped my 1x material into 2″ wide strips using a table saw to make the sides of the tray. However, if you didn’t want to rip down your strips or don’t have a table saw, you can just use precut 1x2s or 1x3s and they’d would work just fine.

You need enough of these strips to be able to “wrap around” the outside of the plywood panel you plan to use for the bottom. In my case, that was about 5′ (or 60″) worth.

Overall size

The overall size of this modern serving tray is 2″ tall x 12 ¾″ wide x 18 ¾″ long (not including handles).

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How to Build a Modern Serving Tray with Handles

I’m sharing the steps below as well as a printable version if you prefer to print your plans. And if you prefer to watch, here’s a how to video as well.

Prefer to print? Grab the printable building plans for this DIY modern serving tray project here.

Tools & Materials

Step 1: Cut Modern Serving Tray Bottom

First, I cut my piece of plywood to about the side I wanted my tray. It’ll end up being slightly larger than this once complete, but I cut my plywood to 12″ x 18″.

Then, I marked in from the corners about 2″ and used a square to draw a line between them. These lines should all be at 45°.

So I set my miter saw’s miter angle to 45° and cut each corner along the lines.

RELATED: How to cut angles on a miter saw

Step 2: Cut Tray Side Pieces

The sides of the tray are cut from ¾″ x 2″ strips. So, first, I ripped 2″ wide strips from my 1x walnut board to use for these sides.

I needed roughly 6′ of strips and my board was about 4′ long. So I ripped 2 strips and had a little leftover at the end.

Once I had my strips ripped to 2″ wide, I used the table saw to notch out one corner of each about ⅜″ deep x ¾″ tall.

This should allow the plywood panel to sit inside nice and snug.

Then, I cut to fit these strips around the plywood panel so that it fit inside the notches with ends beveled 22.5°.

TIP: Make sure to pay attention to the direction of your bevel. On each piece, the bevels are NOT parallel to each other. The notched side of the board should face inside, so it will always be the short side.

Once all pieces were cut, I made sure it was a tight fit all the way around, then sanded them well before gluing.

Step 3: Assemble Tray Sides

I carefully applied wood glue to the ends of each of the tray sides from step 2 and pressed each end together until all 8 sides were glued. You want to work quickly, but carefully so that the glue doesn’t have time to dry before you get all the way around.

Once all joints were glued, I used a Rockler Ratchet Clamp to tighten everything together while it dried.

This clamp holds the pieces snug, but don’t overtighten or they can slip out of place.

Allow to dry completely, then remove the clamp and sand away any glue squeeze out as needed.

Step 4: Attach Serving Tray Bottom

I flipped the tray frame upside down and test that the plywood panel still fits into the notches. Trim as needed until it fits.

Once I was sure the panel would fit, I removed it, applied a small bead of glue into the notched section of the frame, then placed the panel back inside.

I used some small clamps around the outside to hold it until it was dry. You could use a few brad nails as well if you didn’t want to wait for the glue to dry.

Step 5: Install Handles and Finish

If you don’t want to add handles, then, at this point, it’s ready for finish!

I installed some modern brass handles on each side of the tray at the end of the build. However, since the sides here are 2″ thick, the screws that came with the handles obviously wouldn’t go all the way through from the bottom.

So I measured and marked the holes for them on each side so that they would be centered (your hole locations will vary based on the type, style and size handles you use).

Then, I drilled holes at these marks all the way through the sides of the tray large enough for the shank of the screw to fit through.

Then, I flipped the tray upside down and drilled a hole large enough for the head of the screw to fit into about 1″ deep (I used painters tape as a “stop” to know how deep to drill).

This allowed me to install the screws through the bottom side so that they stuck up through the top enough to attach the handles.

After the handles were secure, I applied Walrus Oil Furniture Butter to finish and seal the tray.

And now it’s ready for use! Use it for serving, for décor, give it as a gift–this versatile and classy tray is perfect for any occasion.

Looking for more Handmade Gift Ideas?

With the upcoming holidays, I’ve teamed up with my friend, Kati, from Houseful of Handmade to share some easy and fun gift ideas you can make this season!

I’ve included our gift ideas in the gallery below (click on the images to see how to make each one). Each day between November 18-22, we will be adding more projects to the list so keep an eye out!

If you’d like to save this project for later, be sure to pin it or share to your favorite social channel!

Until next time, friends, happy building!

In this post, I’m sharing how to build a scrap wood tic tac toe game!

This easy DIY makes a great handmade gift idea, but is also nice enough to use as functional décor in your home or on your desk.

Tic Tac Toe is a classic game that everyone knows and loves. So you can keep this out on your coffee table or console table for spur-of-the-moment gaming fun with your kids or with guests!

You can make this in about an hour using wood scraps and size it up or down to fit your needs. I’m sharing the how to below!

*This post contains affiliate links. See website policies.

What Kind of Wood do you need?

This wooden tic tac toe game can likely be made from scrap wood you already have in your shop.

You’ll need a piece of ¾″ plywood about 12″ x 12″ for the bottom. I used some scrap birch plywood, but sanded pine, oak, or maple would work great, too.

Then, you’ll need enough 1×2 board to trim around the sides of the plywood–approximately 48″ worth. I used maple for this, but any wood type would work fine.

TIP: If you have a table saw, you can rip down your own 1x2s from another size board if you don’t have any precut.

To divide the sections, I used some ½″ x ½″ square dowel. You can purchase this precut, OR you could rip your own ½″ square dowel from whatever scraps you already have. You’ll need approximately 48″ of it. Any species of wood would work fine here.

And finally, for the actual tic tac toe game pieces, I used some scrap 2x4s. I just cut these to 3 ½″ square, so you could cut any scraps you have (not just 2x4s) to this size to work for the pieces.

Feel free to get creative here and use what you’ve got in your scrap pile!

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How to Make a Wooden Tic Tac Toe Game

I’m sharing the steps below to make a this wooden tic tac toe board, but if you prefer to watch, I’ve also got a video tutorial here as well.

Tools & Materials

Step 1: Build Tic Tac Toe Tray

First, I cut down a piece of ¾″ plywood to 12″ x 12″ to use for the bottom of the tray and sanded it.

RELATED: How to sand wood

Then, I applied some Minwax Water Based Wood Stain in True Black to this piece. Feel free to stain/paint this any color you’d like.

Once dry, I cut to fit 1×2 around it with mitered ends 45 degrees. You don’t have to miter the ends of the 1×2, but it makes the corners look a little cleaner if you do.

RELATED: How to cut angles on a miter saw

Then, I glued and brad nailed these 1x2s around the plywood panel to trim it out. These pieces should be flush to the bottom edge. This creates a simple square tray.

NOTE: Feel free to paint/stain the 1x2s before attaching if you’d like. I left it natural to contrast the black stain on the bottom.

Step 2: Cut Tic Tac Toe Game Pieces

Next, I cut 9 pieces of 2×4 to 3 ½″ long to make the game pieces. Note that 2x4s are 3 ½″ wide, so cutting them 3 ½″ long creates square game pieces.

RELATED: Understanding lumber sizing

After cutting, I sanded these well and placed them inside the tray.

Step 3: Cut and Install Dividers

I needed to divide the tray into 9 equal sections to create the tic tac toe board. After placing all my 2×4 blocks inside the tray, I found that using a ½″ square dowel as the dividers would fit perfect.

I left my blocks inside the tray, then cut to fit my square dowel around them. Two pieces should be 12″ long to span the whole distance across the tray, then 6 equal length pieces should run between them to divide the tray into 9 sections.

After I cut and test fit these pieces into the tray, I pulled them back out, applied a small bead of wood glue to each one and glued them back in place.

I kept my game pieces inside the tray while gluing to make sure the pieces would fit into each section.

If you wanted to also brad nail after gluing, feel free. But if not, the glue alone should be fine!

Step 4: Add Xs and Os

Once my dividers were glued in, I removed the 2x4s from the tray. I cut out some Xs and Os on permanent vinyl using my Cricut Explore 3 to apply to the pieces–5 Xs and 4 Os.

Then, I stained the Os in Minwax Aged Barrel Wood Stain. I left the Xs their natural color for contrast.

If you don’t have a Cricut, you can simply stain your game pieces two different colors to differentiate between “Xs” and “Os,” or you could draw or carve out Xs and Os on the pieces or use a stencil to paint them.

Vinyl isn’t necessary, but since I had the Cricut, I figured I’d use it. As long as you distinguish 5 of one kind and 4 of another, it doesn’t matter HOW you distinguish them.

Step 5: Finish Wooden Tic Tac Toe Game

The final step was simply applying a clear coat to seal the pieces and give it some protection. I applied two coats of Minwax Polycrylic to the game pieces and the tray, allowed to dry, then it was ready for game time!

This simple game board is so cute and makes a unique gift that you can customize with initials, fun shapes, colors, etc.

Looking for More Handmade Gift Ideas?

With the upcoming holidays, I’ve teamed up with my friend, Kati, from Houseful of Handmade to share some easy and fun gift ideas you can make this season!

I’ve included our gift ideas in the gallery below (click on the images to see how to make each one). Each day between November 18-22, we will be adding more projects to the list so keep an eye out!

If you’d like to save this project for later, be sure to pin it or share to your favorite social channel!

Until next time, friends, happy building!

In this post, I’m showing you how to make a simple DIY book stand from scrap wood!

This easy woodworking project makes the perfect handmade hostess or Christmas gift idea.

The hinged back support can fold up for easy storage, but when propped up, provides a sturdy support for large cookbooks, iPads, or even use it as a photo stand.

What type of wood do you need?

You can build this simple DIY book stand with just about any species of wood you’d like.

I purchased a 1x6x6 mahogany wood board recently to try out since I’ve never worked with it before. So I cut all my pieces from that board (and had quite a bit left over!).

But 1x pine, oak, maple, or even ¾″ plywood would work great as well. I recommend checking your scrap pile before building because you likely have everything you need to build this already in there.

If you have a table saw, you can cut everything you need from a 4 foot long piece of 1×6. But if you don’t have a table saw, that’s totally fine. You can use 1x2s for the book ledge and 1x6s for the back.

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How to Build a Scrap Wood Book Stand

I’m sharing the steps below as well as a printable version if you prefer to print your plans. And if you prefer to watch, here’s a how to video as well.

Tools & Materials

**This post contains affiliate links. See website policies.

*If you have a table saw, you can rip part of your 48″ long 1×6 into 1x2s for the book ledge (details below). If you don’t have a table saw, you can use precut 1x2s instead.

Prefer to print? Grab the printable building plans for this book stand project here.

Step 1: Assemble Back Panel of Book Stand

The back panel of this book stand is made from 1x6s glued together. I cut two pieces of 1×6 to 14″ long (you can make it longer if you want a taller bookstand).

Then, I glued and clamped them together to make a panel about 11″ wide (if you didn’t know, 1x6s are 5 ½″ wide, so two together gives you 11″) x 14″ tall.

Once the glue dried, I trimmed one end square on the miter saw–this will be the bottom.

On the top side, I used some round objects (like a glue bottle and some small stain cans) to just kind of trace out a “handle” on the top.

This is COMPLETELY optional and if you wanted, you can simply cut the top end square just like the bottom.

I didn’t use a template–just kind of drew out a shape I thought looked good. I made my handle about 3″ tall so the main part of the panel was about 11″ tall. Feel free to customize your design and sizing however you’d like.

Once I was happy with my drawing, I cut it out with a jig saw.

TIP: Use a fine finish blade on your jig saw to minimize tear out as you cut.

Then, I used a forstner bit to drill a hole in the center of the handle as another optional detail. If you wanted, you could tie a small rope through the hole for an extra decorative touch.

Finally, I sanded the panel and the edges well to smooth everything out.

Step 2: Attach Book Ledge

After the back panel was assembled, I moved on to making the book ledge. I cut two pieces of 1×2 to about 10″ long–one will be for the bottom and one will be for the front.

I glued them together like shown below. If you wanted, you can certainly add a few brad nails to help secure it as well.

Once the glue was dry, I glued this piece onto the front of the back panel from step 1 so that it was centered and flush to the bottom edge. Please ignore the cat in the background of the photo–he likes to be in the middle of everything HA!

Again, you can add a few brad nails through the back if you’d like.

Step 3: Install Hinged Support

I adjusted my miter saw to 30 degrees and cut a piece of 1×6 to 6 ½″ long (on the longest side) with both ends beveled 30 degrees NOT parallel to each other.

RELATED: How to cut angles on a miter saw

NOTE: I can cut 1x6s on my miter saw standing up, but if yours isn’t large enough to do that, you can lay it flat and adjust your bevel angle to 30 degrees to cut that way instead.

Now, you can install this as a hinged support so it folds up flat, or as a stationary support so it doesn’t fold. Either way works fine, but I thought the hinged feature was helpful, so that’s how I installed it.

First, I installed the hinge into one end of the beveled 1×6 like shown below. Make sure the hinge is centered left to right.

TIP: Be sure to predrill your holes. It might be helpful to use a small screwdriver as the screws that come with these hinges tend to be pretty small and may easily strip if you use a drill or driver.

Once the hinge was attached to the end of the support, I centered it on the back side of my bookstand, lined up the edge with the bottom and secured the other side of the hinge.

Step 4: Finish Book Stand

At this point, the book stand is complete and ready for paint, stain, finish as desired. Since this was mahogany wood, I wanted to keep it’s natural color, but give it a protective finish.

So, I wiped on some Walrus Oil Furniture Butter to finish. Feel free to paint, stain, or customize your book stand however you’d like.

And with that, it’s ready to use for yourself or give as a gift! This would be perfect for use in a kitchen, on a desk, or to display your favorite book, artwork, or photo on a shelf.

Looking for more Handmade Gift Ideas?

With the upcoming holidays, I’ve teamed up with my friend, Kati, from Houseful of Handmade to share some easy and fun gift ideas you can make this season!

I’ve included our gift ideas in the gallery below (click on the images to see how to make each one). Each day between November 18-22, we will be adding more projects to the list so keep an eye out!

If you’d like to save this project for later, be sure to pin it or share to your favorite social channel!

Until next time, happy building!

In this post, I’m sharing how to build a DIY tea station tray from scrap wood!

This simple wooden tea tray has a place for hanging mugs, storing coasters, and resting a tea kettle. Plus it’s a perfect DIY gift idea for a friend, host, or a wedding!

My tea kettle has been taking up valuable space on my stove for a while now. It was not only in the way, but every time I cooked, it would get dirty from splatters from the pans (gross, I know).

So I wanted to create a designated spot (a DIY tea station) for my tea kettle–that wasn’t on my stove–and that also kept my coasters and mugs readily accessible.

But, whatever I made couldn’t be anything big or bulky that would take up a bunch of countertop space in my kitchen.

I think I found a great solution with this little wooden DIY tea station tray and I’m excited to share how I made from just a few wood scraps!

*This post contains affiliate links. See website policies.

What to know before building a tea station tray

This easy weekend woodworking project makes the perfect inexpensive DIY gift idea, but it’s also a great addition to your own kitchen or pantry as well. I made mine for keeps!

Here are a few notes about the build before diving in.

What kind of wood to use for a DIY tea station tray

I made this little tray from scrap oak wood I had leftover from previous projects. While oak is a great option for this project, you can also use just about any type of wood you’d like.

All you need to build this project are a few pieces of 1×6, a small piece of 2×2 and a wooden dowel. So it’s a great project to use up whatever off cuts you may have in your scrap pile!

Softer woods (like pine/spruce) and plywood are more likely to be damaged from heat and moisture than hard woods. But either option will work fine here are long as you’re careful.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Setting a hot tea kettle directly onto the wood surface isn’t advised as it can burn the wood and damage the finish. Make sure to use a trivet, tile, or pot holder between a hot kettle and the wood surface.

Whether you opt for a soft wood or a hard wood, you should still place a trivet or pot holder under the tea kettle if it’s hot.

Overall Dimensions

The overall dimensions of this tray are 5 ½″ wide x 12 ¾″ tall x 16″ long. Note that (depending on the size of it) your kettle may stick up further than 12 ¾″ so with the kettle in place, it may be taller.

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How to build a tea station tray

This is an excellent beginner woodworking project that you can easily complete in just about an hour or so. And it uses minimal tools!

The brad nailer in the tools list is optional. If you wanted to use screws instead of nails, that would work just fine.

Prefer to print? This project is available as a printable build plan if you’d prefer to print and take the instructions to the shop with you.

But I’ve also detailed the step by step instructions below as well.

Tools & Materials

Step 1: Assemble Tea Tray Base

The tea station base is made from 1×6 scraps. You need approximately 34″ of 1×6 OR enough 1×6 scraps to cut down the following pieces.

Once I cut my four pieces, I used glue and brad nails to attach the 7 ½″ long piece and the 4″ pieces like shown below. These will make kind of like an upside down U shape.

A note on sizing: This “U shaped piece” is what the tea pot will sit on top of and the coasters will sit inside. Adjust the sizing of this piece as needed to accommodate your particular kettle and coasters.

Make sure to remove or wipe off any glue squeeze out and sand the edges if needed. It’ll be a lot easier to sand now than later.

Then I used wood glue and brad nails to attach the 18″ long piece to the bottom side so that the “U shape” was all the way flush to one end of the board.

If you’d rather, you can certainly use wood screws here instead, just make sure they are countersunk so the screw head will sit at or below the wood surface.

I made sure to remove all glue squeeze out and set this piece aside to allow the wood glue dry.

Step 2: Assemble Mug Holder Post

The mug holder is made of a piece of 2×2 for the post and four ½″ diameter dowels for the pegs.

I grabbed a few of my mugs and laid them out on my workbench to figure out how far apart to space my dowels and how long to make them so that my mugs would hang on them, but not hit each other.

I highly recommend checking the spacing needed for your own mugs as yours may be smaller or larger than mine.

In my case, I determined that a 12″ long 2×2 would work perfect and my dowel pegs needed to be at least 3″ long. So I cut these pieces down and sanded them well.

Then, I marked where to drill my dowel holes on my 2×2 based on the mug spacing I figured earlier. I ended up drilling my holes at 5 ½″ and 11 ¼″ up from the bottom.

I used a ½″ forstner bit to drill holes about ½″ deep at these marks. I drilled two holes on one side of the 2×2 and two more at the same locations on the opposite side.

Then, I glued my dowel pegs into these holes, made sure they were straight and square, and allowed the glue to fully dry before moving on.

Prefer to print? Grab the printable building plans for this tea station with mug holder here!

Step 3: Attach Mug Holder to Tea Tray

With the tray from step 1 assembled and the mug holder post from step 2 finished, all that’s left is attaching them together.

To do this, I flipped the tea station tray upside down and predrilled a hole on the opposite end as the tea pot stand to attach the mug holder post. I drilled this hole 3 ¾″ from the end and 2 ¾″ from the front edge.

I also predrilled a hole into the center of the bottom end of the 2×2 post. This will make it easier to line up the screw.

Then, I applied wood glue to the bottom of the 2×2 and used a 1 ¼″ wood screw to secure the post to the tray through the predrilled holes. This screw should be countersunk so it’s at or below the wood surface on the bottom of the tray.

Make sure the post is located far enough away from the tea pot stand that you can slide a mug onto the pegs.

Step 4: Make Coasters (optional)

At this point, the tea station tray is ready for finish. Apply a finish of your choice to the tray (or leave unfinished if desired).

Then, hang up your mugs, store away your tea kettle and stock a few coasters so they’re ready when you need them.

If you don’t have any coasters, don’t worry! These simple two tone coasters are SUPER easy to make and all you need are some scrap 1x2s. Learn how to make these easy DIY wooden coasters here.

And if you need somewhere to store your favorite teas, this DIY tea box is another great tea related scrap wood project you’ll love.

MORE FUN WITH SCRAP WOOD

Can’t get enough scrap wood projects? Me either! That’s why I’m teaming up with my friend, Kati, from Houseful of Handmade all month long to share some “Scrap Wood Summer” Projects!

Check out all the projects in the series so far below. Click on an image to learn how to make each one!

We will be posting new Scrap Wood Summer projects every Tuesday through the month of August (2023). Check out last years’ Scrap Wood Summer projects plus other scrap wood ideas here.

Don’t forget to save this project for later by pinning it or sharing to your favorite social channel!

Until next time, happy building!