Custom book & flower pot holders for a wood slat accent wall

I recently built a oak wood slat accent wall with a french cleat system. Using that I designed matching holders for a book and small flower pot that I can now place anywhere on the wall to spruce it up. A simple yet very flexible system.

Making a boring wall look great

In my last article I described how I built a DIY oak wood accent wall in the form of a french cleat wall. That means each slat has a 45° angle cut into the top. Now any hook using an opposite 45° angle can be hung from the slat at any position. A very neat system used in many workshops.

I think it just looks nice so I used it to make a boring wall look a bit more interesting. Of course the wooden pieces and a small picture are a good start but not yet enough. While I have already built giant world maps and put DIY Tshirt art on my walls I was of course looking for something here that uses these angled slats.

Designing a french cleat book & flower pot holder

While the idea behind this wall is to be flexible for now I was looking for something to display an amazing photo-book I brought back with me from a vacation in Iceland as well as a small flower pot. After checking printables and not finding anything for my specific case I decided to just quickly design something myself.

Fortunately once you know the basics about using a 3D modelling software such simple shapes are easy to do so I created first a book, then a flower pot holder. The design is actually quite simple: a 45° hook at the top to hold everything, then a flat piece against the wood with a small ledge at the bottom to hold it close.

Then there is a simple L-shaped piece to put the book on or a ring with a tapered side to hold a flower pot. Fortunately prototyping with a 3D printer is quite fast especially if you can send the code directly from your software to your printer. In both cases I designed one piece, noticed that it does not quite fit right, updated the model and printed another one.

You can find my models on printables. The flower pot holder and the book holder.

3D printing the book & flower pot holders

The models are simple to print and just need some support for the 45° angle. I used the amazing new organic tree supports from Prusa slicer which are fast to print and easy to remove. A blue PLA filament makes the pieces match the blue wall quite nicely.

The book holder takes around two hours of printing time, the flower pot holder roughly double that. The PLA is easily strong enough in both cases, I am sure I could still cut down on the material and therefore print time but I am happy with how they are looking right now.

The experimental hook is currently used to hold a bag while the second flower pot holder will get its own flower soon.

What next?

I am quite happy with the results! While it is nothing ground breaking I think these pieces do a good job making the wall look more interesting.

I definitely enjoy the way it looks now … and if I ever don’t then they are very easy to move around or even fully remove.

I am not yet sure what comes next but this kind of wall has a lot of potential. Send me an email if you have any good ideas what to add next!