How to make a puzzle board

One of the things my daughter and I love to do together is building puzzles. This summer we were working on one together on the coffee table. We would work on it, take a break, a few days later work on it some more, then take a break and so on. Before I knew it, the puzzle had been sitting on the coffee table for three weeks and it still wasn’t done.

It was starting to annoy me. After a few more days, I broke. I destroyed our work and put it back in the box. My daughter was so disappointed. And seeing her upset in anyway always breaks my heart. So, I had a solution.

I asked Kevin to build me a DIY puzzle board. What’s a puzzle board? Well, it is essentially a board you build a puzzle on that can be moved. When I’m sick of it in one room, I can shift it to another. And then bring it back again when it’s time to work on it more.

Puzzle boards are also great for any kind of game that might take longer than expected – like Monopoly. For us, a DIY puzzle board was the solution to all our puzzling problems.

Family fun time

Honestly, having a puzzle board has made working on puzzles so much more pleasurable because we don’t have to rush through them. We added handles to the board so it would be easy to move. The trim piece makes it much easier to keep all the pieces on the board. We are prone to losing a piece under the table or even under the table cloth. Those little trim pieces eliminate that.

The puzzle in this photo is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. In fact, I had planned to finish it for this post. I PURPOSELY bought this gorgeous puzzle {HERE} for this post.

I love all the Cavellini Puzzles and they’re my favorite to work on because they’re so detail and pretty.

This one is 1,000 pieces and generally, starting on the boarder is a smart idea. It just felt impossible with this one so we started with the flowers and matching the colors.

Here’s how we made a simple DIY puzzle board…

Supplies

• Sanded plywood – Standard puzzle boards are 36 x 26, but I wanted mine a bit smaller to fit between posts on our coffee table. Our’s is 33 x24.
• 1-inch trim
• 2 cabinet handles
• Wood glue
• Sandpaper
• Stain and rag to apply
• Miter saw
• Hand saw

Steps

1. Cut the plywood to size, either with a table saw or see if they will do it for you at the hardware store.
2. Sand down the board lightly, especially the place where you cut it.
3. Cut your trim pieces to size using the miter saw. Then, using a miter saw again cut them again at a 45 degree angle. You want to angle the trim pieces on each end at 45 degrees so they fit together properly.
4. Glue the trim pieces down to the edges of the puzzle board. Wipe up any access wood glue. Use clamps to hold them in place. Let them dry at least 24 hours.
5. Once dry, remove the clamps and then sand down the edges a bit, especially in any areas where the glue might have leaked.
6. Stain in the color of your choice. We used a mix of Early American and Briarsmoke. I believe it was ¾ Early American and ¼ Briarsmoke.
7. Let the stain dry.
8. Attach the handles to the board and then use for puzzles, games or even an centerpiece or charcutier board tray.

Our puzzle board supplies

Here are a few of the things Kevin used to create the puzzle board that you can see in the video above.

Hart Cordless Hand Saw – Used for cutting our board.

DeWalt Miter Saw – Used for cutting the trim pieces at multiple angles.

Wood glue – Used to make everything work!

Clamps – Used to hold everything together while drying.

Vintage Wildflowers Cavellini Puzzle -<3

So, what do you think of the puzzle board? Let us know if comments below!

Thank you so much for visiting today, friends! I hope you’ll come back again to see what else is happening at Sugar Maple Farmhouse! See see more of our DIY’s click {HERE}. Also, make sure to check out our Limewash Fireplace project {HERE}!