I love a good wooden tray and when it is handmade, even better! This wooden tray is useful to keep knick-knacks on your dresser or to hold your favorite snack while you watch TV. It adds a unique touch to your home and can easily be personalized by using your favorite paint color or by finding some unique knobs like we did. We used drawer knobs as handles for these wooden trays, which adds a fun touch of whimsy. Wooden tray with handles

A wooden tray is always useful to have in your home. To find out how to make this DIY wooden tray with drawer knobs as handles keep reading!

Materials you’ll need to make this stained wooden tray:

Wood – we bought a sheet of plywood about an inch thick and a 1×2 board long enough to be cut into the 4 edges of the trayHandles or knobsHand SawDrillNailsPaint & paintbrush

How to make this DIY wooden tray with doorknob handles:

Start by finding some handles or knobs you would like to use as the handles on your tray. We bought ours at Anthropologie but T.J.Maxx and Homegoods have some fun knobs too. Here are the gold knobs and here are the dog knobs.

Go to your local hardware store and buy a piece of plywood and a 1×2 board. You can either have them cut it down to the size you want (Home Depot does this for free) or you can cut it yourself at home using a handsaw. We had them cut our piece of plywood down to 12 x 18 inches for the rectangle tray and to 13.5 x 13.5 inches for the square tray.

Once your plywood is cut down to size, you can have them cut the 1×2 into lengths long enough to rim around the board. For our rectangle, we needed 2 pieces that were 10.25 in long and 2 pieces that were 18 in long. For our square we needed 2 pieces that were 12 in long and 2 pieces that were 13.5 in long.

Now that all the wood is cut down, it is time to drill holes in it for your handles. First measure out where you would like your handles to be and make a mark on the wood. Next take your drill and drill a hole as deep as the knob is long.

Once your holes are drilled it is time to build the tray. If you have clamps and wood glue, feel free to use it to preliminarily attach the lip to the tray base. We didn’t have this so we just lined up the 1×2 on the wood and hammered nails through the bottom of the plywood and into the 1×2. You’ll only need one nail in the center of each board (or slightly off center if your handles are drilled in the center). In the picture below, the x marks are where we nailed into our tray.

Once all 4 sides are nailed to the base, then nail the rim together by hammering in one nail in each of the 4 corners horizontally.

Now the whole tray is assembled and it is time to paint or stain your tray. For this tray we used wood stain, but you can use any color paint or spray paint you want to. For the wood stain, you simply brush it on to coat the whole tray, wait a few minutes, and then wipe the tray down with a rag to wipe off the excess. We recommend gloves for this step because your hands will get stained!

Once your tray is completely dry screw your handles in and you are done!

As someone who doesn’t do much as far as working with wood and power tools, I was able to make these trays so I think you can too! Just be careful and wear gloves and glasses to protect yourself. I think these trays came out great and can really add a fun element to your home whether you decide to put it in your living room or kitchen or even bedroom!