Quick & Easy Wood Tray [Less Than $8!]

Sharing is caring!

You can find some of my favorite things about DIY life are the projects that come together out of need and are super easy to build. This is one of those days. We aren’t going super fancy, just uber practical with this quick & easy wood tray. The best part? It cost less than $8 to make! You can make a serving tray just as quickly as well! 

This simple wood serving tray is an easy DIY that can be used for decor or serving at a party

 

This DIY wood serving tray makes a perfect centerpiece for our Christmas table

This post contains affiliate links. please see my Disclaimer for more information

How to Make a Quick & Easy Wood Tray

Jordan made this tray one afternoon to help me corral my things in the dining room. Since he wanted to make it super simple, he opted to do something different than my other favorite wood tray.

His time cutting trick was to use one single board for the bottom rather and several 1″x 3″ boards! We used an 8″ board, which was perfect for the dining room table. It wasn’t too narrow or too wide, just right for Goldilocks over here. 😉

This DIY wood tray is perfect to use as a decorative centerpiece for holiday decorating

I’ve always been a little cautious when it came to dining room centerpieces solely because we actually eat in the dining room every night! I never wanted to move lots of stuff every night and put it back after dinner.

And that led to using a tray. Each night I can pick it up, move it, and pop it back in place in just a few seconds.

Real life is just pushing our things out of the way, enjoying dinner, enjoying our evenings, and then remembering to clean up afterwards. 🙂

A simple DIY wood serving tray makes great centerpiece for holiday decor around your home

 

Quick & Easy Wood Serving Tray

Quick & Easy Wood Serving Tray

Active Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour

This adorable DIY wood serving tray is a simple DIY that can be used for SO many things, from seasonal decor to dinner party dining.

Materials

Instructions

1. Make Your Cuts

Determine the size you'd like for the tray. Then, cut down your 8" board to the preferred length. For reference, to make my tray a total length of 36", my board is 34.5" in length.

Once you've cut your board to length, measure how long your sides need to be in length.  Your long sides will be the length of the board and the short sides will be the board width + 1.5 inches in length.

2. Assemble Your Tray

Using your KregJig, attach your pieces with pocket hole screws. In the picture above, you can see where we placed the pocket holes.

Soften the edges with an orbital sander.

3. Finish with Stain

Once you have your tray assembled, stain it to your preference. I used one coat of EarlyAmerican wood stain and a second coat of Konawood stain.  I wanted to use up leftover stain from old projects so I combined the coats to find the color that worked well for us.

Once the stain dries, top it with one coat of stain polycrylic to seal in the stain.

 

Supplies Used for the Quick & Easy Wood Tray

Make this DIY wood tray in less than an hour!

Make Your Cuts

Determine the size you’d like for the tray. Then, cut down your 8″ board to the preferred length. For reference, to make my tray a total length of 36″, my board is 34.5″ in length.

Once you’ve cut your board to length, measure how long your sides need to be in length.  Your long sides will be the length of the board and the short sides will be the board width + 1.5 inches in length.

**Bad blogger: I definitely didn’t get a chance to photograph the steps because it didn’t take longer than 15-20 minutes to put together! By the time I was done helping the kids with something, Jordan was already staining!**

 

Stained wood pieces before assembly for the DIY wood serving tray

Pocket holes drilled into the wooden board for easy assembly

Assemble Your Tray

Using your Kreg Jig, attach your pieces with pocket hole screws. In the picture above, you can see where we placed the pocket holes.

Soften the edges with an orbital sander.

Attach the pieces of wood together at the corners

Clean corners of the wood serving tray

Finish with Stain

Once you have your tray assembled, stain it to your preference. I used one coat of Early American wood stain and a second coat of Kona wood stain.  I wanted to use up leftover stain from old projects so I combined the coats to find the color that worked well for us.

Once the stain dries, top it with one coat of stain polycrylic to seal in the stain.

The width is perfect for a dining room table. I took some leftover decor and placed it in the tray. Insta-table thrown together in just a few minutes! The best part? 90% of it is a garland from Target. I didn’t have to do any crafty work.

Now, the table looks perfectly ready for Christmas and my DIY wreaths look a little less lonely!

This wood serving tray is perfect for a holiday centerpiece

We used this wood serving tray as a Christmas centerpiece, filling it with a lantern, pine cones, and pine tree branches

Total Cost: less than $8!

I am in love with how easy this tray is to make! Simply make a few cuts and piece it together.

Enjoy an easy DIY win and a really nice piece of decor!

 

PIN FOR LATER:

This is the quickest and easy wood tray to make yourself! Total cost is less than $8 and its perfect for beginners! Click to see how to make your own! #diy #woodtray #homedecor

This is the quickest and easy wood tray to make yourself! Total cost is less than $8 and its perfect for beginners! Click to see how to make your own! #diy #woodtray #homedecor

 

 

 

Sharing is caring!

2 Comments

  1. Oh my goodness! I love this tray the decor on your dining room table looks so Domingo mine. I had actually just bought two small trays today so I could move my decor on and off the table. I may just take them back and have my hubby build one like this.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *