2 years ago, I fished out this giant cedar piece from the lake shores of Georgian Bay. Now, it resides on my wall as a beautiful art piece in my living room for all to enjoy. The process of this took over 2 years, but it isn't too hard to do. It just takes a lot of patience. It really makes my home feel like a cottage, and it was 100% free.

Supplies

- 1 Giant piece of driftwood (Found at lake shores, I'm sure you can get one if you get near a lake)

- Wood finishing wax (Brings out the grain and natural colour, we used beeswax for cheeseboards)

-A clean cotton rag

-Hand sandpaper

-Drill and large screw

Step 1: How to Find a Piece of Wood

To find a piece of wood, we recommend going to somewhere near a lake with old towns. This gives a high chance of finding an old piece of wood like this. We find lots of pieces like this near Georgian Bay, so if you are near there, we recommend it! Wherever you are, you can either walk along the shore and search or go on a boat and drive around until you find a piece. We don't have any pictures mid-way the project because we never planned to make an Instructables on it.

Step 2: Drying the Wood (2 Years!)

Once you have your massive wood piece, find a dry place for long term storage and put it in there. Make sure it's gonna be able to stay in a spot comfortably with lots of air space around it. (Propped up on a few pieces of wood is what we did.) Forget about the wood, and in about 2 years it will be completely dry and much lighter. If you know a way of drying it out faster, try it out!

Step 3: Now That Its Dry... Welcome Back!

First, start by sanding your wood for hours. Soft sanding along the grain will give it a nice smooth finish at the end, with no jagged pieces. Don't use an orbital sander or something like that, just do it by hand and you will get a much nicer end result. After sanded, get your clean cotton rag and scoop out a little wax onto it. In smooth circular motions, apply the wax across the whole piece until you get the look you want. A little wax goes a long way, so don't go overboard!

Step 4: Hanging It

First, get your drill. Get a friend to hold up the wood onto the wall and drill a hole through the wood into the wall. Make sure you drill it into a stud and collect the sawdust. Get a 3" wood screw, and screw 1 in tight. Drill the second hole the same way you did earlier and get another 3" wood screw and screw it in tight. Anybody holding it can let go, and you can drill the 3rd and last hole and put a 3" wood screw in tight. To clean up the holes, get some sawdust from your holes and mix it with wood glue to make a paste. Put that into the holes, and smooth it with a damp cloth. Let it dry, and you're done!