Reversible Checkerboard Wooden Tray

Happy Summer, Y’all!

We are full-swing into summer around these parts… heat indexes in the triple digits! The temperatures bring to mind many a summer past, full of days spent by the pool or sitting on the porch of my grandparents’ home in the country. And when the weather was just too hot for anything else, you’d often find my Pap-paw on the porch with his checkers! Or at the local country store sitting in the doorway with a friend, checkerboard between them.

In honor of my Pap-Paw, I made a DIY checkerboard… a Reversible Checkerboard Wooden Tray! It’s a checkerboard on one side, a beautiful wood finish tray on the other.

This post is part of a DIY Blog Hop featuring 10 blogs over 2 days sharing what they’ve created using products from Lowe’s in unexpected ways! (This is NOT a sponsored post. All materials were purchased, by me, for this project!)

Let me tell you how this all got started…

My blog friend, Barb, and I were brainstorming one evening after she had concocted this awesome outdoor lamp, using supplies in a way other than their intended use. We decided it would be a really fun challenge to organize a blog hop with an emphasis on using anything we found in our local Lowe’s home improvement store – but with a twist. The item had to be used in an unconventional way!

It was fun perusing the aisles of my local Lowe’s, trying to spot something fun to be creative with! While I was looking, I spotted this near the lumber aisle: a 24″ furniture-grade round of wood. This piece, however, wasn’t wrapped up all pretty-like. Instead it had a sticky note on it that said ‘cracked – $5’. I knew when I saw that, I’d found my goldmine – because the pristine boards were about $20!

The next part was just plain fun. Yes, it did have a pretty good crack in it, but it didn’t go all the way through the thick board. I got out my wood glue and a scraper and forced the glue into the crevice. After some pressure and a few hours drying time, it was good as new. Well, good enough for my checkerboard project.

For this project, I used:

A board, approx 24″ diameter or square
2 different colors of stains
1.41-inch-wide painter’s tape
rope
Tools: drill, rags, craft knife, metal ruler or straight edge, marker, sand paper, Q-tips,

To make the checkerboard, I followed these steps:

Find the center of the board.
Measure straight across and lay a strip of tape just to right of the center (one edge of tape is on center line). You will have 5 rows of tape on either side of the center, 10 rows in all.
Again, find the center of your board and mark on top of tape. Now lay another strip down, with one edge on center line, perpendicular (crosswise) to the tape already down. Again, tape 10 rows. Now you have 10 rows of tape going one direction, and 10 more running 90 degrees to the others. If you’re really good at measuring and/or eyeballing, you might get away with laying your tape down in a basket weave pattern. I just wanted to make sure my rows and squares were all the same size.
I made little L-shaped tic marks in the corners of my design, and then marked every other square with an X to give me a visual of my checkerboard.
With an Xacto knife, score along each edge of tape, and then remove the squares marked with an X. I also wanted to create sort-of a border around the checkerboard, so I measured 3/8 inch away from the outermost squares on the design.
To stain, I used an ebony-colored stain pen. You could of course just use ebony stain. I had just always wanted to try the stain pens and also thought it might be easier to apply in the small squares.
After the darker stain is dry, you can apply the lighter stain with a brush, let sit a minute and wipe off excess with rag.
Do one side of your tray at a time (I started with the back, or plain, side).
Drill holes where your rope handles will go, using first a small drill bit for pilot holes, then a larger one so as not to split the wood. I applied stain to the inside of the holes with a Q-tip!
After dry (follow manufacturer’s drying times), apply single coat of polysatin or polyurethane.
When dry, attach rope handles (This is how I made those: Cut 2 pieces of rope, each long enough to make a pull-through handle for each ‘side’ of the board. I drilled 2 holes on each opposite side of the board and pulled rope through both holes. I placed the rope end to end (not overlapping much) and used hot glue to secure. When glue hardened, I wrapped with a secure tape. Then I wrapped each rope handle (where it was joined with tape and glue) with LOTS OF twine. Voila!)
Enjoy your Checkerboard Tray! (And here’s a pic to pin!!)

I love this tray because of its versatility…

It’s portable, so you can take it anywhere.
It’s reversible, so you can flip it over to use as a serving tray!
It’s durable – the polysatin will protect the wood from any spills when using as a tray.

Here’s how it looks with my Coastal Vibe Summer Mantel: