Decorating Your Space with Lakes of Wood

A lake has a shape, and that shape is worth putting on a wall. A wood map turns the water you love into a piece you can actually live with: the coves you know by name, the drop-offs you fish, the shoreline you watch the sun go down over, all carved to their true depth in birch. This is the complete guide to decorating with lakes of wood, from the flagship 3-D chart to the cork map on your desk, and how to choose the right one for the room.

Why a lake map works as decor

Most lake-house art leans on cliches: the oar over the mantel, the sign that counts the ways to spell "relax." A wood chart does something quieter and better. It is accurate first and decorative second, so it reads as craft rather than kitsch. Every Woodchart lake begins as a bathymetric survey, the same depth data boaters trust, and gets cut into layers of birch on a laser bed. The shallows sit high, the deep basin drops away, and a wash of stain marks the water. The result is a topographic model of a real place, not a stylized idea of one.

That accuracy is what makes it hang so well. A map of your lake carries specifics no generic print can: the island you row out to, the narrows where the wind picks up, the bay where the cabin sits. Guests lean in. Conversations start. Set it near photos of the people you share the water with and the wall becomes a record of the place, not just a decoration on the way to somewhere else.

The five forms a lake of wood takes

One lake, many ways to keep it in the house. Each format suits a different room and budget, and there is no wrong pick. Start with where it will live, then choose the form.

1. The 3-D wood chart

The flagship, and the one people picture first. Layers of birch stack to build real relief, so the map has genuine depth you can read at a glance and feel with a fingertip. Charts run from small pieces that fill a gap on a bookshelf wall to large statements that anchor a room. Measure your wall before you buy, decide whether the map hangs alone as a focal point or leads a gallery of the same region, and let the size follow the space. A large chart wants breathing room; a cluster of small ones tells a fuller story of a shoreline.

2. The cork map

When you want the water in the room without giving up a whole wall, a cork map is the answer. The shoreline and depth detail get etched into a thin layer of birch laid over a cork base, so the piece stays light enough to prop on a desk, a shelf, or a mantel. Cork is renewable, harvested from the bark of the cork oak without felling the tree, which makes it an easy material to feel good about. Cork maps also make some of the best gifts in the shop: small, affordable, and personal enough to mark a specific trip or a shared summer. Browse the full range in the cork maps collection.

3. Fire and Birch

For a flatter, more graphic look, the Fire and Birch series engraves the whole map into a single half-inch slab of birch rather than stacking layers. The topography and shoreline are burned in, and the water is finished in your choice of antique glass or sea-glass paint for a soft, luminous surface. The thick single-panel construction resists warping, so these pieces hold up for years. The Lake Charlevoix map shows how striking the style can be, all clean line and glowing water.

4. The wall clock

A clock is one thing a wall almost always needs, so make it one worth looking at. A map clock keeps the birch face and deep-stained water of a full chart and adds hands you can actually read across a room. Every glance at the time is a glance at the lake. The warm wood and stain bring a natural note that a plastic or steel clock never will, which is exactly right for a kitchen, an office, or an entryway. See the range, from the Great Lakes clock to the Lake Winnipesaukee clock, in the wall clocks collection.

5. The serving tray

The most useful piece in the lineup. A map serving tray carries drinks to the dock and doubles as a charcuterie board, a coffee-table centerpiece, or a catch-all for the odds and ends by the door. When it is not in use it hangs or leans like any other wood map. Handing guests a cold drink off a chart of the very water they are looking at is a small pleasure that never gets old, and a good excuse to point out your favorite spots. The serving tray collection spans coasts and lakes alike.

Finding your lake, region by region

The catalog runs the whole country, so the odds are good your water is already carved. Here is where to start by part of the map.

The Northeast

Upstate New York gave us the Finger Lakes, eleven long, skinny lakes that really do look like fingers pressed into the land, and they make an unusually handsome map for exactly that reason. You can hang the whole Finger Lakes region or a single favorite. Farther east, New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee and the countless lakes of Maine round out a part of the country that packs a lot of shoreline into a small footprint.

The Midwest and the Great Lakes

No region does lakes like the Midwest, and none does them bigger than the Great Lakes: Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, the largest freshwater system on Earth. A little trivia goes a long way when the map is on the wall. Lake Superior holds more water than the other four combined, and Lake Michigan is the only Great Lake that lies entirely within the United States. The Great Lakes 3-D chart captures the whole system at once, and inland favorites like Green Lake in Wisconsin and the Lake of the Ozarks hold down the region's smaller waters. Explore the full set in the Midwestern collection.

The West and the South

The West is better known for its coastline, but its lakes are the deep, cold, spectacular kind. Lake Tahoe reaches more than 1,600 feet down, and a 3-D chart is one of the few ways to see that depth laid out in relief on your wall. Down South, where life is lived on the water, a lake map adds an easy, unforced charm to a den or a porch. Wherever your water sits, a wood map earns its place. Find your lake and give it a wall.

Ready to start? Browse the best sellers to see the pieces people reach for first, then find the water that means the most to you.