20 DIY Old Barrel Ideas for Home and Garden

An old oak barrel is the rare secondhand find that is already the right shape for about forty different things. The staves are curved, kiln dried, whiskey soaked white oak that cost a distillery real money, and they come apart into chair slats, shelves and candle holders. Leave the barrel whole and it is a bar, a cabinet, a kegerator or a light. Cut it in half and it is a dog bed, a planter or a mirror frame. These 20 DIY old barrel ideas run the full range, from a $39 half barrel from the garden center turned into a dog bed in an afternoon to a full wine barrel desk on a stained plank top. A few are welding jobs. Most are a jigsaw, a sander and a weekend.

1. Wine Barrel Ring Succulent Wreath

Wine barrel ring succulent wreath, a rusted metal hoop with faux succulents and moss hung on weathered barn wood

The metal hoop off a barrel, 22 to 26 inches across, becomes the frame for a succulent wreath that never needs watering, because the succulents are faux. Trim each stem to an inch or an inch and a half, then wrap floral wire around both the stem and the ring to lock it on. Start in the middle of the arrangement and work outward in both directions, then pack moss into the gaps with more wire or a little hot glue. The maker chose artificial plants specifically because live succulents do not survive a Seattle winter outdoors.

Get the full tutorial at This Grandma is Fun.

2. Wine Barrel Mirror

Wine barrel mirror, a large round mirror framed in weathered oak barrel staves hanging above a marble console table

Not staves cut and arranged, but a whole half barrel with a mirror set into the back of it. Saw about a quarter inch above the second metal ring, and count the rings before the blade goes in, because those rings are the only thing holding the staves together and the frame needs at least two of them to stay sound. Take the cut barrel to a local glass shop and have a circular mirror cut to fit the opening, which runs about twenty to thirty dollars. Glue it in with something serious, press the edges down and leave it overnight.

Get the full tutorial at A Storied Style.

3. Barrel Wood Stove

DIY barrel wood stove made from a steel drum with a stovepipe, standing in front of a stacked woodpile outdoors

Not a wine barrel, a 55 gallon steel drum, and the stove itself costs under $25 to build. The money goes on stovepipe, flash plate and rain hat instead. You cut a rectangular firebox door and a draft opening with a jigsaw and metal blades, use the piece you cut from the top to make an elevated firebox floor, build an adjustable air draft from carriage bolts, and hang the door on hinges. The flue is 5 inch pipe, set toward the rear of the top. Keep the floor and walls fireproofed or at least twelve inches clear.

Get the full tutorial at Backwoods Home Magazine.

4. Wine Barrel Dog Bed

Wine barrel dog bed made from a half whiskey barrel cut into a curved opening with a round white cushion inside on grass

A full size half whiskey barrel from Home Depot at $39 and a $10 bed from TJ Maxx, so about $49 against $150 to $300 for the bought version. Measure three inches down from the rim, bend a thin flexible strip of wood to draw a smooth U shaped curve, mark it, lay the barrel on its side and cut with an electric saw. Sand the cut edge with coarse paper so there are no splinters. Then cut the original metal band with garden shears at angles matching the curve, refit it around the new opening and screw it down at each side.

Get the full tutorial at Lola the Pitty.

5. Light Up Whiskey Barrel

Light up whiskey barrel glowing at dusk with snowflake patterns drilled through the oak staves on a blue house wall

Fourteen thousand three hundred and sixteen holes. That is the real number from the maker, drilled through a whole whiskey barrel so lights inside throw a snowflake pattern across a patio. Stencils cut from cardstock hold the pattern around the curve, and you use one already drilled hole as the registration point for lining up the next stencil. A countersink bit places the tiny holes precisely without skating across the oak. Inside, five fixtures are daisy chained with crimp connectors, black to gold and white to silver, then the cord runs out through the enlarged drainage hole.

Get the full tutorial at Wilker Do's.

6. Whiskey Barrel Coffee Table With Storage

A whiskey barrel cut in half lengthwise and set on legs so the hollow becomes storage under a hinged lid, holding anything from blankets to bottles on ice. Oak is the reason it works as furniture rather than decoration: barrel staves are thick, kiln dried white oak, so the shell is structural once it is braced. Bought finished, tables like this run somewhere between $795 and $1,000, which puts it firmly in the category of a build that pays for itself. The tabletop is generous and the storage underneath is the part everyone opens first.

Get the full tutorial at Sueeye.

7. Rain Barrel

DIY rain barrel made from an old whiskey barrel beside a house with ferns planted on top and a watering can below

Old white oak whiskey barrels, bought secondhand at $200 for the pair, fitted with Earth Minded DIY rain barrel kits at $30 each, so roughly $130 a barrel finished. The kit supplies the hoses, spigot, rubber gaskets and even the hole saws. Site each one within three feet of a downspout on something level; old pavers work. The one real snag is thickness: barrel oak is deeper than the hole saws are long, so cut as far as you can, then drive a long screw into the hole, grip it with the drill and twist and pull the plug out.

Get the full tutorial at Tixeretne.

8. Rocking Chair Made From Recycled Barrels

Rocking chair made from recycled barrels, a seat built inside a large metal barrel hoop hung from a tree by chain

A hanging chair built inside a full barrel hoop, with the curved staves forming the seat and back, suspended from a tree by chain. The original is a designed piece by Sestini and Corti of Italy rather than a plan you can download, so treat this one as a shape to copy rather than a set of instructions. If you do copy it, the hoop is the structural element and everything hangs off it, so it needs a block and tackle or an S hook on heavy chain, and the wood should be sealed to keep the aged patina without letting it go gray and soft.

Get the full tutorial at Trendir.

9. Whiskey Barrel Kegerator

Whiskey barrel kegerator, a full oak barrel standing upright in a kitchen with a beer tap tower fitted through the top

A whole barrel standing on end in a kitchen with a tap tower through the top: a working kegerator hidden inside oak. The build is cooling plus a tap, so the barrel is a cabinet and a chest freezer or fridge insert does the actual work inside it. Two things decide whether it succeeds. The barrel has to be tall and wide enough for your keg plus a CO2 bottle, which a standard wine barrel usually is and a quarter barrel is not, and the tap line needs to stay cold the whole way up or the first pour is foam.

Get the full tutorial at Homebrew Talk.

10. Wine Barrel Cabinet

Wine barrel cabinet standing upright with a door cut into the curved oak side and two carved duck decoys on top

A whole barrel standing upright with a door cut into the curved front and a pair of carved duck decoys sitting on top, which is the simplest liquor cabinet shape there is because the barrel keeps its own profile. Cutting a door out of a barrel side is the step that takes nerve: the staves are held by the hoops alone, so screw or clamp on both sides of every cut line before the blade goes in, or the cut releases that tension and the whole side loosens. Hinges want to land on a stave, never on the gap between two.

Get the full tutorial at Crafty Trev.

11. Repurposed DIY Wine Barrel Chair

A barrel taken completely apart and rebuilt as an Adirondack style chair from its own staves. Every barrel yields 25 to 30 of them, so lay them out from thinnest to thickest and assign them by job: two thick staves for the arms, slightly thinner for the front legs, thick again for the back legs under the seat because that is where the weight lands, and the skinny leftovers for everything else. Build a rough layout on the ground before cutting anything. Outdoor screws in 1 5/8 and 2 1/2 inch, and outdoor urethane at the end.

Get the full tutorial at Sueeye.

12. Wine Barrel Desk

DIY rustic wine barrel desk, a long stained plank top resting on two oak wine barrels against a white wall with a chair

Two barrels from a local winery at $50 each, holding a top glued up from three untreated 2x10x10 boards that cost $33 at Lowe’s. Sand the stamped mill markings off first, then glue the boards edge to edge with Liquid Nails for Wood, clamp them and leave it a full 24 hours. Minwax pre stain conditioner goes on next with a 15 to 20 minute wait, then two coats of Red Oak 215 stain four to six hours apart, then at least eight hours before the polyurethane. The top simply rests on the barrels under its own weight.

Get the full tutorial at My Kind of Glam.

13. BBQ Grill Barrel

BBQ grill made from a 55 gallon barrel with a hinged lid on a metal stand, shown with three inset build photographs

A 55 gallon honey barrel cut into a lidded grill on a stand made from chain link fence posts. The parts list is short: a grinder, plywood, carriage bolts, stainless brackets and hinges, a couple of grill grates, a wooden dowel handle, an air vent, a temperature gauge and optional high heat paint. Read the comments before you start, because the sharpest point there is about what the drum held first. Epoxy resins and chemical linings do not always burn off cleanly, so only use a barrel with a known food history, and burn it out first.

Get the full tutorial at Goods Home Design.

14. Easy DIY Barrel Grill Cart Tutorial

A wine barrel turned into a rolling grill cart, so everything you need is beside the grill instead of back in the kitchen. Draw a window on the side of the barrel between two metal straps, draw a matching one on the opposite side, and cut along both lines, which gives you a through shelf. Then add the shelf, a handle and casters. Peel the labels, stain the whole piece if you want it darker and let it dry fully. In use, the bottom fills with ice for drinks while the top holds the food going on.

Get the full tutorial at Sueeye.

15. Rustic Pet House Made From A Wine Barrel

Rustic pet house made from a wine barrel laid on its side with one end open and a red cushion inside, on a patio

A whole barrel laid on its side with one head removed and a cushion inside, raised slightly on a frame so it does not sit in wet grass. Laying a barrel down rather than cutting an opening into the side is the easier version of a barrel pet bed, because the head just lifts out once you release the hoop and no curved cut is needed. The staves will roll, so it needs a cradle or a couple of blocks underneath. Sand the rim well and pad the bottom, since bare oak is cold and hard to lie on.

Get the full tutorial at Pause and Play.

16. Tiered Whiskey Barrel Strawberry Planter

Tiered whiskey barrel strawberry planter with three cut barrel sections fanned open and strawberry plants at each level

Three whiskey barrels at $30 each from Lowe’s, one 8 foot 1×4 cedar board at $4, three bags of potting soil at $10 each and twenty strawberry plants at $2 each. Two barrels get cut in a spiral, the third symmetrically: first cut just above the top band, second midway down, third just above the second band, and the bottom two bands stay for structure. Use a wood blade on the jigsaw for the staves and swap to a metal blade for the bands. Mirror the cuts on the second barrel so the tiers fan outward instead of stacking.

Get the full tutorial at Untrained Housewife.

Wine barrel shelf side bar with a push pin travel map framed in oak staves, wine bottles above and license plates below

A barrel taken apart and rebuilt flat against a wall: staves form a frame around a laminated world map, and the two barrel heads become the shelves at top and bottom, screwed and glued in with the original metal bands wrapped around them as trim. The map is mounted on foam board with spray adhesive so push pins hold, and license plates hang from chains beneath. It is heavy enough that the maker hung it on a low profile cleat system rather than screws, which is the right call for anything built from a whole barrel.

Get the full tutorial at DIY Projects with Pete.

18. Wine Barrel Turned Candle Holder

Wine barrel turned candle holder, a curved oak stave with five lit glass votives sitting on a marble topped dresser

One stave, five glass votive holders and about $25 including the stave bought on eBay. Sand lightly at 220 grit, enough to take the splinters off without erasing the patina, then find the center of the stave and divide the length into thirds to mark five evenly spaced positions. Drill with a 2 1/2 inch forstner bit to match the base of the votives, only a quarter to half an inch deep, supporting the curved stave on a jig in a drill press. Oak is very hard, so expect slow steady pressure. One coat of low luster shellac, not two.

Get the full tutorial at Old Town Home.

19. Wine Table

Wine barrel cocktail table with a round glass top over a cork covered barrel head, set on a patio between two chairs

A barrel found at a roadside stand in Temecula wine country, stained in an oaky color with a small roller and a brush, two coats, then topped with a 24 inch round glass tabletop from Pier 1. Going wider than the barrel was a deliberate choice. Around 150 wine corks are hot glued to the barrel top in a pattern, which is what you see through the glass. Nothing is fixed down: the barrel and the glass are both heavy enough that the top stays put on its own, so set the barrel in its final spot before the glass goes on.

Get the full tutorial at Foodie Loves Fitness.

20. Wood Barrel Bar Table

Wood barrel bar table on a deck, a round wooden top on an oak barrel with four tall patio chairs around it

A 30 gallon barrel given by a neighbor, a 10 inch tree stump as the base and a scrap wood round for the top, about six inches wider than the barrel. Wood glue holds the barrel to the stump, glue and screws hold the top on, and three inch lengths of 1×1 fixed to the barrel first give the top something more to bite into. Sand the surface and seal it if it lives outside. Bought barrel tables run $500 to well over $1,000, and authentic barrels themselves run $100 to $200 on eBay if nobody is giving you one.

Get the full tutorial at Thrifty NW Mom.