Cedar Wall for Craft Fair Booth-TUTORIAL!

Do you sell at craft fairs or festivals or do you plan to someday? Here's a great tip for you to attract customers. Create height! Creating height adds interest and entices customers into your booth, allows for more room for customers to move around, and also, all your wonderful creations will be at eye level and easier to see. 

I am going to share how my husband and I created height by building a portable wall.

DISCLAIMER: If you do build this wall, just make sure your breakables are secure. As you can imagine, craft fair tents aren't very sturdy, so sometimes when the wind blows...the whole booth rocks. Just to be on the safe side, I wouldn't put large ceramics items or glass mosaics on display.  Also, to counter weight the other side fill jugs with water and rope tie them down. We use about six kitty litter containers. (We wouldn't want to crush a customer or take out a booth neighbor right??)

We have little carpentry experience and pretty much winged this project, but we are very happy with how it turned out. If you are planning on building this wall and know someone in construction, I would consult with them and see if they have any suggestions for you!

Tutorial

Product list

9 12"x88" cedar planks.The planks we used are recycled and from a deconstructed building. Try your local wood supplier. Because cedar is so light it makes it very portable. (this is the most expensive part of the wall)

9 Simpson Strong-Ties

6 Aluminum Angle Bars

1 PVC Pipe

12 Pipe straps

1 Copper pipe

Construction screws The thickness of your walls will determine what length your screws should be.

2 Redwood Lattice caps

Rustic Glazing Formula: Translucent Color Glaze; Mocha, Antiquing Glaze, Clear Mixing Glaze

I found a tutorial on how to make wood look rustic from Brittany Bailey over at Pretty handy Girl. Thank you Brittany!

Paint brushes 

Tools

Tie down straps

Clamps

Drill

Drill bits

Caulking gun for Liquid nails

Two saw horses

Step One

We constructed a total of 3 panels. They are very light, even for little ol' me to carry and move around.

First, place three planks on the saw horses. Using the tie downs, tighten the planks close together, so there are no gaps.

Using liquid nails, and screws, screw 3 of the strong ties to the back of the planks.

Do the same with the aluminum angle bars, but first you have to drill holes with the drill bits for the screws to go in.

See below pic for placement. Do these steps for the other two panels as well.







The cut in the top is because my tent has a bar that comes down. We had to cut a groove for it to go between. Depending on your tent, you may not have to do this step.

Step Two

Cut PVC pipe into 3 equal pieces. Lay all three panels on a flat surface. Then place PCV pipe pieces on the back of the panels. Line up all three and then screw in place with pipe straps. The goal is to get them lined up so that the long copper pipe runs through all three panels and holds them in place. When we set up the wall at events, we use plastic zip ties to hold the copper pipe to the tent bars. 

Step Three

Ok, time to throw on some painting clothes and mix up some paint! Brittany's tutorial is here and provides the amount to mix up. I painted a bit more around the edges of each plank to give it that rustic aged look. You can see the effect in the above pics.

A couple more of tips. We used the lattice caps on the top and bottom to frame the whole wall and give it a finished look. We place them on when we are setting up. Also, sometimes the wall doesn't line up properly when at events due to the ground being uneven. We fix this by using a tie down on the bottom, back side of the wall. Since the tie down is in the back, you don't even see it.

There you have it!

Once you are finished making your wall, I would draw a diagram on what you would like to hang. Shelving? Picture frames? Now is the time to make your wall tailored to suit your needs according the your style and the products that you sell! Have fun, and if you have questions please feel free to contact me!