DIY Coffin: How to build your own affordable and natural coffin

Choosing to build or construct your own coffin is a unique alternative to purchasing a manufactured casket. It can also prove to be a personalized and inexpensive option.

According to sources about coffin making, this can be quite easily done without specialist woodworking skills. With all our environmental concerns about the earth’s resources and pollution, building your own ‘natural’ coffin, is also a more sustainable approach.

There are a number of organizations that provide resources to assist you with building your own coffin. These can be reference materials that explain how to construct a coffin, giving tips on design and woodworking skills. Or you can also purchase ‘flat-packed’ ready made options. There are even kits that help you build a piece of furniture, such as a Hope Chest or Coffee Table, which can be later utilized as a coffin. This makes for a very practical and ingenious method where you can create your own affordable casket and even get value out of it in life!

The Jewish faith believes in burial in a simple, natural way and therefore a simple, naturally made pine box with no ornate fixtures is the preferred choice. Aside from that many of us are now opting for simplicity and something more organic and natural. We are stepping away from the need for elaborate, expensive excessive steel caskets.

The two resources below for ‘DIY Coffins’ and ‘Homemade Caskets’ give comprehensive guides how to go about constructing your own wooden coffin. Another great personalization option when you have created your own wooden coffin, is the fact that you can decorate it and make it especially personal.

Being able to construct your own natural wooden coffin and decorate it, personalizes it in a unique way, and makes a less expensive and more personal casket, than purchasing a casket from a casket retailer.

Directory of Natural Casket Companies in the United States:

Ark Wood Caskets
Ashland, OR 97520
Phone 888-482-7135

Eternity International Inc.
449 Tyrella Ave, Suite #45
Mountain View, CA 94043
Phone 650-625-8010

Final Footprint
Phone 650-726-5255

Kent Casket Industries Inc
545 Eighth Avenue, Suite 401
New York, NY 10018
Phone 888-534-7239

Nature’s Casket
P.O. Box 3
Longmont, CO 80502
Phone 720-383-7613

Northwoods Casket Company
1214 North Center Street
Beaver Dam, WI 53916
Phone 888-799-5077

Summit Ridge Wood Design
P.O. Box 308
Dolores, C0 81323
Phone 970-882-7894

The Old Pine Box
PO Box 1713
Edgewood, NM 87015
Phone 505-286-941

Related Articles:

Resources:

DIY Coffins
Homemade Caskets: You Can Make a Coffin

Written by

Sara is the Editor in Chief for US Funerals Online and has been researching and writing about the death care industry in the US for the last 15 years.