Wood Dowel Wall Art

Inspiration from Wood Dowels

I recently took the opportunity during the COVID-19 pandemic to spend some of my “at home time” working with wood in the garage.  I have been wanting to plan and design a wood piece using wooden dowels that would have a mid century modern vibe and my daughter is always up for helping me find an idea that she could use in her decor that I can experiment with in my maker space.  We put our heads together and utilized Pinterest for inspiration.  I loved the results so well that I decided to share on this blog and my Instagram page.

Here is my first wood dowel project.

Materials:

  • 1/2 inch square dowels (I purchased at Home Depot and Menards for $1.19-$1.69. I am not sure why the price varied so much from purchase to purchase.  I used about 10 dowels per square foot.
  • Birch panel 24” x 24”  Home Depot will cut a 48” x 48”  panel board in half for no extra charge so it ends up costing around $3.00 for the backing panel.
  • Minwax Puritan Pine Stain for the trim board and back panel
  • White Folk Art paint to white wash the dowels and for the frame.
  • Gorilla Wood Glue ( I originally planned to glue and nail the dowels but found that the wood glue has a strong hold and nailing might take away from the crisp lines of the design.

Process: 


It is important to have some guides for aligning the dowels.  I used blue painters tape to mark the diagonals of the board and to mark the measured “sections”  of the pattern.  I used scraps from my cut dowels as spacers between the dowels, removing them as the glue dried.

I found the all purpose clamps also helped keep the dowels in place as they dried and it was important to cut and lay out the design before applying the glue.  All angles were 45 degrees to keep things simple.

My favorite part of the process is coming up with the design and the wood cutting & building.  My least favorite is the finishing process of adding felt to the back, touching up the paint, adding wood putty to the seams, sanding and framing.

After finishing my first project, I built three 12” x 12” pieces with a continuation pattern across the
three boards.  I like the flexibility of being able to mount horizontally or vertically.  I see a number of wood dowel art projects in my future!

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