Easy DIY Round Serving Tray

Fast projects have my heart lately, and this one may have been the quickest one yet. Lowe’s, and most other home improvement stores, sell these glued wood rounds that most people might use for a Lazy Susan. I’m going to go ahead and throw a life hack at you by turning it into a serving tray instead!

Basically, all you need to do is stain the wood, attach the handles, and then finish it with polycrylic and you’ve got yourself a new functional piece for your home or for a gift. I wasn’t even thinking about it as a gift when I made it, but it would be a seriously great DIY gift! The round was just under $8, and then you just need handles, stain, and poly. You can even use a stain/poly combo like this to save money. I found my handles at Lowe’s, but you can also find great ones at other home improvement stores, amazon, or Hobby Lobby.

 Follow along below for a more detailed explanation on how to make this serving tray!

*This post contains affiliate links at no extra cost to you. View my full disclosure here. 

Materials:

• (1) Round edge glued board- I got mine at Lowe’s and it has a 15″ diameter!
• Handles/Pulls- you can find them almost anywhere! The ones I used are great and are Allen & Roth that I found at Lowe’s. Click here to check them out.
• Finishing materials:
  • I used Minwax True Black stain and Minwax Polycrylic in matte, but it would be a great money and time saver to find a stain/poly combo! I have used Minwax PolyShades in Mission Oak before with great results.
• Sandpaper

Tools Used:

• Drill
• Paint brush
• Painter’s Tripods– awesome, but certainly optional!

Step 1: Sand the wood

• I gave the wood a quick sanding before putting the stain on, but it doesn’t really need much since it comes really smooth already! Again, I got my round wood at Lowe’s! Click here to see it online.

Step 2: Stain the wood

• You can switch the next few steps around if you prefer. You could also attach the handles and then stain/poly, but I didn’t want to get stain on the handles, so I decided to stain my piece first using Minwax True Black with 2 coats.
• I also decided to get these Painter’s Tripods to use for this project, and pretty much all future projects. They help you allow finish both sides of your project, by keeping one side off the work surface. They certainly aren’t necessary, but it was nice to not worry about ruining the stain or finish and do both sides at once! I am sure that I will use them on many projects to come.

Step 3: Attach handles

• Here is a link for the handles that I went with! I like how they are big, with a 5in. center, because they don’t look too dinky with the large tray. They were a great price too at $2.98 each!
• To attach these handles, I needed to drill pilot holes for the screws. (Link for the drill I use here) The handles came with two different sizes of screws, but the longer ones were too long for this project, and the shorter ones were too short.
  • I was able to make the short screws work by drilling countersunk holes, which basically lets the head of the screw go deeper into the wood.
  • To drill the countersunk hole, drill a small hole that the body of your screw will go through, and then drill a bigger hole to the depth where you want the head of the screw to sit. See pictures below to understand a little bit better what I’m talking about.

Step 4: Protect the wood

• I loooove Minwax’s Polycrylic in matte! I seriously use it for almost every project. A big part of the reason is because I don’t want the yellowing effect that polyurethane creates. If you’re painting something, definitely use polycrylic. If you’re using a dark wood stain, polyurethane would do just fine as well!
• I did three coats of the polycrylic and just tried to not get it on the handles. I would just wipe it off with a little paper towel if it did happen to get on them.

That’s it! You have a serving tray! If you are making it a gift, you could also paint or stencil a monogram in the center, or be as creative with it as you’d like.

Serving trays are awesome, because they’re great for entertaining, bringing someone breakfast in bed, or just bringing food to the table when you’ve made dinner.

I hope you enjoyed this quick and budget-friendly project! Let me know if you make one yourself, and how it goes.

Happy building and thanks for stopping by!

-Whitney

Other projects you might like: