Not long ago, someone gave me a piece of wood they found on the beach (or near a river, I don’t remember) and said, “You have a DIY blog, put it to good use” (exact words). Since a piece of wood alone isn’t much, I gathered some materials to make the first thing that came to mind, which, as the title of this post suggests, was to make a rustic wall hanger for accessories.
So, on a walk along the beach, I picked up a couple of pieces of driftwood (the two simplest pieces you see in the photos. The most twisted one was the one given to me) and in the garage, I found an old piece of skirting board, which I can’t tell if it’s chestnut or oak (yes, that’s my level of expertise as a carpenter, I can’t distinguish some woods).
With the guide for 90-degree cuts with the circular saw (if you’re not a blog follower, you can see how to make that guide on this blog) I cut the piece of skirting board to 31cm long by 9cm wide. Using a router and a cheap bit, I cut a molding all around. A bit of sanding and it was a perfect board as the base for the rustic hanger.
I wanted to add some color to the molding of this rustic wall hanger, not just varnish, so with a small ball of thread (the kind you can buy in skeins at DIY centers, or like the one mechanics use to clean grease), I rubbed some blue stain on the molding, not worrying if it went outside the lines. Once the stain was dry, I used a wooden block with sandpaper wrapped around it to sand off the paint that went outside the molding. This way, the base board for this accessory hanger has a perfectly defined blue frame.
I used the disc sander to round off the tip of the branches and to flatten the wider part, which would be attached to the wooden base. For this attachment, I used some wood glue and a screw, for which I had to drill pilot holes in the board and the branch, so that these screws had roughly the angle of the branch, ensuring they go into the branch enough to hold weight without coming out the side.
In the video, you can see in detail how to make this wall hanger. As you will see, I forgot to put the hooks to hang the accessory hanger, and I had to carve the slots with the branches already in place and the glue dry. In the end, it wasn’t too much of a problem and I was soon able to varnish the hanger with a satin clear spray varnish.