How to Hang Oars on the Wall with DIY Leather Hooks

An easy way to hang oars or paddles on the wall using leather strips and brass screws for a finished look. These DIY leather hanging brackets allow you to hang vintage oars, perfect for lake house or beach decor!

I’ve been working for years renovating our small lake house cottage, tackling DIY projects over the weekends we are up there and slowly collecting vintage decor to use in the rooms. Our cottage is on a small lake in Wisconsin, so I’m always on the lookout for vintage lake and camp decor.

I’ve actually been searching for vintage oars at the right price for years, so when these beauties were still there on the last day of an estate sale in my town, I snagged them up for half off and paid $30 for all three!

Making the hanging brackets from leather and brass screws was super easy, and I personally love the finished look they give.

Supplies Needed to Make Hanging Brackets

• 12 x 12 sheet of leather
• #8 brass screw with slotted, rounded head
• Drywall anchors (if you are unable to drill into studs)
• Drill bit and drill

How to Make the Brackets

The first step is to cut the sheet of leather into strips about 1″-2″ thick, depending on how thick you’d like them to be. After the strips were cut, I just used scissors to cut a point at the end of each strip.

To start, I drilled a hole in the center of the triangle end of the bracket.

Then, I folded the piece around the oar, and marked the place where I would need to drill holes through the other two layers of the loop. Once I had made one strip, I used it as a template to make the others by marking where I had to drill the holes.

To attach the hooks to the wall, I folded the strip around the oar, and then borrowed the hand of one of my kids to hold up the other end of the oar while I predrilled a pilot hole into the wall, and then used a flat head screwdriver to screw the brass screw into the wall. Since I was installing my hooks into wood paneling, I didn’t need drywall anchors, but if you are attaching to drywall, I’d recommend putting small anchors in the wall and then screwing into those.

All in all, the brackets cost me only a couple of bucks for a handful of screws, because I used leather left over from a couch cushion repair I had to make.

And here’s how they look across the wall. My three year old was quite upset that the middle one was facing a different way than the others, but you can’t please everyone, right?

A few more of my lake house projects…