14 Profitable Wood Projects That Sell in 2023

Wood projects are, in brief, items made from wood, typically by hand, that serve specific customer needs. If they’re good, they can be sold – and for good money!

All you’ll need to create products to sell is the wood itself, plus a saw, a drill, glue, and some goggles and gloves to keep you safe. Woodworking skill is, of course, preferred – but some of the more basic wood projects only require a fundamental level of knowhow.

If you plan to make money with your wood projects (as you should!) you’ll also need some way of marketing and selling them online, such as an online store or marketplace.

But we’ll get to that later – for now, on with the wood projects that sell in 2023!

The 14 most profitable, easy wood projects to sell in 2023 are:

• Picture Frames
• Kitchen Utensils
• Boxes
• Children’s Toys
• Planters
• Birdhouses
• Chopping Boards
• Shelving
• Wine Racks
• Benches
• Jewelry Boxes
• Bath Trays
• Personalized Signs
• Coffee Tables

Everyone loves to take pictures (especially selfies!), and everyone loves looking back on them as memories. So it goes without saying that picture frames are a natural first port of call for anyone looking to create and sell beautiful wood projects online.

Simple to put together, picture frames require only a more basic level of skill – so they’re ideal for woodworkers who are newer to the trade, and looking to start small before progressing to the big stuff.

As you’ll find out in our guide to the 12 most high-demand products to sell in 2023, kitchen utensils represent a booming market. And, with some nice wood and a touch of skill, they can also be a profitable wood project to sell, too.

Unlike with picture frames, kitchen utensils also offer a wide scope to have fun and mix it up. With forks, knives, spoons, spatulas, potato mashers, and plenty more utensils to craft, the kitchen is your playground!

We’re calling it now: the world will always have a need for wooden boxes. A staple in the hospitality industry – especially when it comes to packing wine and food – wooden boxes have a near limitless supply of uses.

Ranging from the decorative to the functional (this writer knows he has one for his vinyl records that he couldn’t live without), wooden boxes are relatively simple to make. And, given their wild popularity, should be even simpler to sell.

From train sets and racetracks to giant snakes-and-ladders boards, wood doesn’t just have to be functional – it can be fun, too!

Wooden children’s toys offer so much scope for creativity and flair. You’re not limited by the constraints of the form (as you are with most picture frames, chopping boards, and boxes). Instead, you’re limited only by what you can build – and, of course, your imagination!

Wooden planters have a knack of adding a warmth and charm to an outdoor space – so it’s no surprise they’re such a highly sought-after item.

Fortunately, they also sit in the camp of chopping boards, picture frames, and boxes in that they’re on the easier side to make. However, the larger ones can still command high prices – especially if you equip them with a slick coat of varnish, and a set of wheels for extra portability.

Whether as a simple decoration or to attract the local avian population, birdhouses are a popular garden ornament. Fortunately for the prospective woodworker, birdhouses also look best in wood – and sell at alluringly high prices.

There’s also so much room for creativity. From birdhouses inspired by the hobbit holes of The Lord of the Rings to ones with a clear cubist-architecture flavor, you’ll be able to express the full bounds of your inventiveness – just check out the range of birdhouses on Etsy for inspiration!

If there’s one place in particular where wood always seems to look good, it’s in the kitchen. And why wouldn’t your customers want some beautiful wooden chopping boards to go with their equally gorgeous wooden kitchen utensils?

Chopping boards are relatively easy to create (although you’ll need to be a dab hand at sanding!) and sell for impressive prices. To give customers more choice, craft chopping boards of different sizes, and combine them into multi-buy packs.

There aren’t many things more wholesome than walking into a room full of books. But to create that effect – and turn whole rooms of their homes into libraries – your audience will first need the shelves to do it with.

So get your nails out, have your pine (perhaps even some nice mahogany) at the ready, and start building – and selling – wooden shelving.

If there’s anything more satisfying than walking into that aforementioned room of books, it’s having a nice pinot noir at hand to enjoy it with. But where to store those wine bottles, exactly?

Wine racks, of course – and what better material to make them out of than wood?

Despite their relatively one-note purpose, wine racks can come in all sorts of interesting and unique designs. So feel free to flex your creative muscles a bit here and push the boat out in weird and wonderful directions. The most innovative of wine racks will command the highest prices!

While they might sound a bit basic, benches come in all shapes and sizes – and for a variety of purposes.

From church pews and picnic tables to park benches (heck, even gym benches), there’s a lot of room for originality – and to make a decent profit, too!

Strong and durable, yet with a touch of class and elegance, wood is the perfect material for jewelry boxes.

Granted, these are one of the most technical wood projects to sell and make. With several moving parts and small compartments, we don’t recommend making jewelry boxes to woodworking newbies. But, for the more seasoned woodworker with a steady hand and plenty of patience, jewelry boxes are a highly lucrative wood project.

As simple as they are ingenious, bath trays (also known as bath caddies) lie across the top of a bath. Offering a place to perch a tablet or electronic device, as well as circular grooves for keeping beverages or candles to hand, these trays help make bath time even more of a relaxing experience.

They also look excellent in wood, and are an easy wood project to sell and create. There’s not a huge amount of scope for invention or expressiveness, but that doesn’t matter – your happy customers won’t care!

Ideal for birthdays, Christmases, or simply as a thoughtful gift, the personalized sign market is a lucrative one – particularly if you have the engraving skills to carve them from wood.

What we love about personalized wooden signs is that they’re so unique and special that they serve as a powerful form of word-of-mouth marketing for your brand. Seeing that brilliant new wooden sign that’s just gone up on their neighbor’s gate, a person’s bound to ask – ”where did that sign come from?”

All you have to do is wait for the call!

A staple of any self-respecting den or living room, a wooden coffee table is a statement piece of furniture – meaning they command big prices.

Of course, they’re also big pieces of work. A coffee table requires more skill, know-how, and time than, say, a picture frame or chopping board. However, for the ambitious woodworker looking to make their own statement in the industry, coffee tables may just be a cup of exactly the right stuff.

Now you’ve got your product inspo, you’ll be wondering – how can I begin selling wood projects online?

Here’s a quick-fire guide to get you started.

1. Choose where you want to sell online: be it social media, an online marketplace such as Amazon or Etsy, or solely through your own ecommerce store.
2. Set up your online store: for this, we recommend an ecommerce website builder, such as Wix or Shopify. You can build your store – with a lot of creative control around its look and feel – then pick a pricing plan to get you started.
3. Populate your online store: next, you’ll need to fill your new website with inventory. That means taking high-quality product photos and writing detailed product descriptions.
4. Price your products: not all wood projects are created equal. Some take longer – and cost more – to build, and therefore should be more expensive. Set prices that work for you, and reflect the effort and energy you put into making your wood projects.
5. Choose a payment gateway and set up shipping: this will allow you to accept payments online, and ship your wood projects to your customers in a secure, cost-effective manner.
6. Promote your wood projects online: shout about your beautiful woodwork across social media and on your website, as well as through email, content, and – if you have the budget – SEM (Search Engine Marketing).

Whether you choose to sell wooden jewelry boxes, toys, or anything in between, the world of woodwork is wide, wild, weird – and wonderful. Now you know the wood projects that sell you can pick the ones that best suit your ability and audience needs, and become a successful woodworking entrepreneur!

But why stop there? As your woodworking (and ecommerce) skills grow, you can expand to selling furniture online next!

Good luck!