Wooden world map on wall next to green plant

Wooden World Map Wall Art and Free Printable Vintage Maps

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28 beautiful and free printable vintage maps, ideas to incorporate maps in your decor and a stunning wooden world map wall art from Ukraine!

When I was small and the world was still big, I loved to look at maps.

World maps and local maps, old maps and new maps – it didn’t matter to me. I loved them all.

The maps spoke, and I listened.

They told me of a wild and wonderful world beyond the borders of our sleepy little hamlet of Borington Glastonbury, Connecticut.

They spoke of hot Arabian sands piled into majestic and sweeping dunes dotted with camels and nomads.

They told of the cold arctic tundra and the hardened souls who live upon it.

They whispered of gentle Caribbean breezes that rustle the palm leaves and ripple the surface of warm emerald waters.

They shouted of the fierce winds of Cape Horn that drove 100-foot waves and sent old whaling ships down into the crushing black depths of Davey Jones’ Locker.

When I looked at maps, I traveled to those places.

As I grew bigger and the world grew smaller, my fascination remained.

Before any trip, I’d study a map of the place I’d be visiting. If I were driving there, I’d trace the entire route from start to finish.

I did the same while sitting in San Francisco and planning my move to Qatar to be with Handan.

And again while sitting in Izmir with Handan and planning our move to Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, I studied Saigon.

In Saigon, I tried to make sense of Gurgaon.

And now that we’ve settled back into my old boyhood hamlet of Borington Glastonbury, and our traveling days are mostly behind us, I look at maps to remind me of where we’ve been instead of preparing me for where we’re going.

So with Barish’s bedroom makeover, we wanted to give him a way to remember all the countries he’s lived in, too.

With that in mind, Handan has reached deep into her digital archives and found some beautiful vintage maps and searched the internet for map upcycle ideas.

Her first thought was to make a World Map Desk like Claire from Pillar Box Blue did.

It would be a great way for Barish always to have a map in front of him, but we ultimately went with a desk that gave him more working space, so we scrapped that idea.

Handan’s next bright idea was to make something like this Map Decoupaged Lamp by Stephanie at Silver Boxes.

Map decoupaged lamp by Silver Boxes
Source: Silver Boxes

But as we got on with his room makeover, we realized there wouldn’t be any space for a table lamp, so we had to give up on this idea.

Handan briefly entertained making a Map Table like this one from M & J Rustic Creations.

But like the table lamp, we couldn’t figure out where we would put it if we made it.

This Map Desk Organizer by Claire at Pillar Box Blue would be a great storage solution for his school supplies, but the desk we ended up buying plus the filing cabinet we made over gave him more than enough storage.

Well, we seemed to be out of space on the floor, but the walls weren’t yet entirely spoken for. We like how Tasha at Kaleidoscope Living made these Pallet Frames to hang her old maps. Perhaps we could do something like that? After all, the maps Handan has are all high-resolution and could be printed poster size. And even better, we could share those vintage maps with you!

We were still entertaining that idea when Jay, one of our readers from Australia, wrote in a comment, “With all the places Barish has lived, it would make an awesome artwork or feature globe highlighting each spot on the map.”

We had our answer!

Yes, we would use the wall space – specifically a perfect patch of vertical real estate above Barish’s desk. But instead of a smaller printed map, we’d find something bigger!

Something made of wood!

Handan leapt back into cyberspace to hunt down the perfect map.

A short while later, she found what we wanted from a small company in Ukraine that makes incredible laser-cut wooden wall maps.

We put in our order and waited.

Also, just because we went with a wood map doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten about printed maps!

Nothing could be further from the truth!

In fact, we will be sharing 28 beautiful free printable vintage maps with you today!

And you thought today was just going to be another boring day? Not when The Navage Patch wants to give stuff away, sister!

Okay, those awesome vintage map printables are at the end of the post, but first let’s get back to the wooden world map wall art.

Our wooden world map arrived after a couple of weeks. It was very well packaged.

wooden world map box

We opened it up, hoping for the best. It was a long journey for those little wooden pieces!

inside of wooden world map box

The top layer looked good! Each piece was packed snugly into its own Styrofoam bed.

inside of wooden world map box

There were many layers of Styrofoam, each containing continents, countries and islands.

inside of wooden world map box

We took the box up to Barish’s room and prepared to hang his new world map.

First we measured and taped off the area in which the map would be. We bought the 60 inch map, so we taped accordingly.

woman putting tape on a wall

Next, Handan put the included double-sided tape on the backs of each piece.

woman putting tape on wooden countries

I helped Barish with the positioning. There is a numbered reference map to help with placement, but a lot of it is just eyeballing.

We started with North America, as it was the easiest to situate, and then we slapped New Zealand and Australia in their places (g’day Jay!).

boy sticking wooden country on a wall

From there, it was just a matter of figuring out where each piece went relative to the others already placed.

boy sticking wooden country on a wall

The craftsmanship is amazing. Each piece fits perfectly together. Yeah, I know a laser did all the cutting, but still, it’s impressive!

boy sticking wooden country on a wall

Here’s how it looks!

Wooden World Map Wall Art and Free Printable Vintage Maps
Wooden World Map Wall Art and Free Printable Vintage Maps
Wooden World Map Wall Art and Free Printable Vintage Maps
Wooden World Map Wall Art and Free Printable Vintage Maps
Wooden World Map Wall Art and Free Printable Vintage Maps
Wooden World Map Wall Art and Free Printable Vintage Maps
Wooden World Map Wall Art and Free Printable Vintage Maps

Barish loves his wooden map wall art. Now with just a glance, he can see all the places he’s lived.

Okay, let’s move on to the freebies! It wouldn’t be a room makeover without at least one free printable post, right?

So what do we have for you today? We have 28 free printable poster size vintage maps: 8 regional maps including Europe, the Northern Hemisphere and the continents pictured below, and also 20 Vintage World Maps.

All these maps are 36 inches wide, but the height differs for each map depending on its design.

Free Printable Vintage Maps

And here are the 20 vintage world maps.

Free Printable Vintage Maps
Free Printable Vintage Maps
Free Printable Vintage Maps
Free Printable Vintage Maps

An original print of World Map – 14, pictured below, sells for $2000, if you’d care to spend a large chunk money.

Or you can download ours for free and send a little coffee money our way! 😉

Free Printable Vintage Maps
Free Printable Vintage Maps
Free Printable Vintage Maps

*******

All the vintage maps we are sharing today are high-resolution JPEGs, so you can scale them up or down as necessary. If you need help with scaling down these printables so you can print them on your home printer, then make sure you check out Handan’s “How To Easily Resize Pictures” post.

Also, if you don’t have a large format printer like the Canon i8720 Printer (prints up to 13×19 inches) and are wondering the best place to get these vintage maps printed bigger than 8×12, we recommend trying Staples in your area or Amazon print shop. Both stores offer custom-sized prints on matte or glossy paper, and they both cost about the same. Staples also offers Engineering Prints, which are really affordable for large-format prints, but in some areas (like ours), they must be ordered from their online print shop.

Now it’s time to click on the button below to download today’s vintage map printables – you’ll find them under the Maps section of The VIP Patch.

take me to your

amazing freebies library

If you’re not a Navage Patch VIP, you won’t be able to access our Freebies Library. But that can be easily fixed! Subscribe for free on the form below and become a Navage Patch VIP. Once you subscribe, a password will be sent to you in our Welcome email, and that will give you access to The VIP Patch [Freebies Library].

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29 Comments

  1. I love the wood map! Now I want one but need a place to put it! Barish’s desk area is nicer than most people’s offices! He is never going to want to move out now! Lol!
    I also love the printables and really appreciate you two creating such great collections. My only question is what is an engineering print? Is it in colour? I tried to find an explanation on the Staples site but had no luck. I keep picturing blueprints. Am I way off? Thanks for your help!

  2. I love this map! (I also love vintage maps). I am definitely going to order one for my basement rec room wall (when I get back from upcoming vacation travel). I’ve been looking for just the right map to remind us of the places we visited and plan to visit and this is IT! The wood tones really make it stand out from regular paper maps and give it an upscale vibe.

    It looks great in Barish’s room. I like how it even comes with a compass, planes, and boats (lol). Nice touch that they included the tape to hang it too. Must be a pain to hang all those islands though.

  3. Wow! That is beyond cool. This makeover has been so fun to watch and has given me so many great ideas! Such an awesome space. And I’m a map reader too! Love to look at new places and all the possibilities. Seriously, you have taken this over the top!

  4. Another interesting, informative and productive post! You already know I love all of you, enjoy you with my coffee every Friday and look forward to the next post. Thanks, as always for the Freebies. Till next week, have a great one!

  5. Wow,that is fabulous! I love maps , i can spend hours looking at them especially old maps of local areas, it’s so interesting and sometimes sad to see how places have changed.The wooden wall map is such a great idea.

  6. Wow! Wow! Wow! What a great looking map and room. I wish you had been my parents. The wooden map is so grown-up looking. You two take it over the top every time. Thanks for sharing.

  7. You two are awesome! Thanks so much for sharing these glorious maps and your other awesome goodies!

  8. WOW that is one beautiful wooden map hmmmm I am a quilt maker it would make an awesome quilt.. very inspiring. Love all your printable sand your woodworking and Hanna’s ideas are just amazing. Thanks for posting your talents.

    1. Hi Janice! We’re not hosting a contest for the wooden maps, but do keep an eye out next week, as we will be officially announcing a Cricut Maker giveaway! 🙂

  9. When I was about Barish’s age my Dad bought a 10,000 piece jigsaw of a giant old world map and everyone was tasked with putting it together. It was so large it came in two sets. Even visitors were recruited into the jigsaw army. When they finally finished it, it had a very precarious trip to the framing place and then finally took pride of place on the recroom wall. It was much bigger than I was! But I used to spend ages just looking at it and tracing all the coasts and learning the countries (and laughing at how Australia was just one big ???)

    I would love this wooden map in my room but I’ve oficially run out of wall space. But that set of boxes has given me ideas…

    Handan, you really knocked it outta the park finding that gorgeous map! Your Google-fu is strong. Though I can’t imagine how difficult it would have been putting in all those little islands and piecing together our world (it should have come with a scaleable block template! Though I am loving their styrofoam packaging!). And those printables are just gorgeous.

    I’m so ecstatic to see this on the wall! It looks fantastic!

    1. Jeezum Crow, 10,000 pieces?? How long did it take to finish? Do they still have it? I want to see it! And Jay, you have no idea the extent of Handan’s Google Ninja-ry! She finds stuff from the farthest corners of the world that you’d never know were even digitized!

      1. We worked on that jigsaw for at least 8 months. I only spent time at my Dad’s on weekends but he would sit patiently every night working on just a little bit more. There was a small celebration when the first bag was finished…and then we all remembered there was another bag just as big.

        That map made the move to another three houses. A few pieces fell out and floated down the bottom of the frame behind the glass. It started to pull away from the backing and was really only held together by the pieces fitting together. Finally Dad moved to a place that didn’t have a wall big enough for the piece and they sold it to someone who wanted to put in the effort to take it to a framers and have it fixed up. I don’t think he was sad to see it go.

  10. LOVE THIS!! When I was a kid, it was globes. Got one for Christmas when I was 6. It was a relief globe and I just loved running my fingers on the mountain ranges and just studying every possible detail! So jealous of this room!

  11. Wow that wooden map is fantastic and I love the print outs too. Like you our boys have inherited an interest in the world, maps and travelling. I think it’s all the stories they have heard, I was born and bought up in Hong Kong, their dads family is from Norway so we’ve spent a lot of time there and their grandparents live in Portugal. I know my middle son would love that wooden map. Thanks also for including my 2 map projects.

    1. Hi Claire, thank you so much! Your projects are awesome, and now I can understand your love of maps, too! It’s great to look and see where you’ve been! 🙂

  12. Looking good Greg!Thanks for all the printable maps and the link to the Etsy seller. Very much looking forward to the full reveal, Barish is a lucky guy.