The reason I bought a miter saw and became obsessed with power tools, was spurred from wanting a piece of geometric wood wall art. I had seen a lot of geometric wood wall art at craft fairs and on Etsy. Boy was it all expensive! I thought I could definitely make a piece myself, and I was right.
I had done a lot of research before hand looking for instruction on how to DIY this. There wasn’t much out there that had detailed instructions. Not that I really needed instructions. It was my first project of this type so I was feeling a lot of doubt. Turns out this is actually pretty simple. Incase you need a little boost of confidence like I did here is what I learned.
Here are the materials you are going to need:
- 1×2’s
- Miter saw, or a miter box
- Wood project board
- Wood glue
- Brad nailer (optional)
- Wood Stain or paint
- Flower pot holders (optional)
Getting started with the geometric wood wall art
First up you are going to need some project board. You can find this at Home Depot or Lowes and get it cut down to the size you want right in the store. I used a 1/4 inch thick board. I suggest getting the thinnest board you can as it will just add weight to the overall piece. If this is your first project like this maybe don’t be ambitious like I was and make a huge piece. Start small to figure out your process. I felt a little overwhelmed with such a big piece.
While you are at home depot grab some 1X2’s. There is no way that I could figure out to calculate how many I would need, because math is hard. Soooo I did end up going back to pick up a few more in the end.
Cutting the wood
Divide your board down the center horizontally and vertically to find the center of the board. This also divides the board into four quadrants. I started by cutting pieces down for the first quadrant.
Take your first 1×2 and cut the end at a 45 degree angle. Then hold it up to the center of your board, with a pencil mark where the 1×2 ends on the board. It’s totally fine if this isn’t perfect, we’ll take care of this later. Cut all your pieces to fit in the first quadrant. You can use those as a template for the next three quadrants and they’ll just need to be flipped. You can also do two “rows” of wood like I did, but I think this made things harder especially on my first time trying this.
Placing the pieces (aka doing some geometry)
Before you glue anything down, have everything laid out where it is going to go. Then pick each piece up one by one and glue down clockwise (or counterclockwise). I went all willy nilly and then things were not fitting how they were supposed to. Once everything is glued down there is the optional step of going in with a brad nailer and nailing everything down. If you do this make sure you get nails that are short enough that they won’t go through to the back of your board. I made this mistake and it was a pain to fix!
Finishing touches
Once everything is glued and secured it’s time to cut off the excess, or not. All along I thought I would cut the excess wood off. I ended up really liking how it looked kind of like a sunburst so I left it. If you do decide to cut it down just use a circular saw or jigsaw to cut off the excess. I gave all of the pieces a quick sand. You could probably skip this part, or just sand the edges that were cut.
Now it’s time to stain or paint. You could also do this before securing everything down, it’s really up to you. If you want to use more than one or two stain colors it would probably be easier to do it before everything is glued. There is no right or wrong here though! If you are going to have it outside make sure you seal it with a weather proof sealer.
Options for displaying
This project for me evolved as I made it. Originally I was going to hang this up in my bedroom. Once I saw it coming together I thought it would be cool to hang some flower pot holders on it and hang it on my shed as a little herb garden.
To hang it just grab some picture hanging hardware and attach it to the back. Make sure to use screws that won’t go all the way through to the front. You don’t want to ruin your newly finished artwork! If you want to attach flower pots like I did I used these flower pot hangers and attached them to the front of the piece. And voila just like that, easy peasy, you have a piece of geometric wood wall art.
I wish I had a final photo of this hung up in my garden, but unfortunately I don’t. And before you say Elizabeth why didn’t you just run outside and take one? I’d say to you it’s raining 23/7 out here in the great PNW I’m not going outside!. Hopefully this will suffice, I really love it!.
