Long ago I was inspired by an Eastern boot scraper: a series of hardwood 1x1s arranged to give you a place to get the worst clods of mud and dirt off of the bottom of your shoes. It stuck with me for years, so finally I made the time to create a few of my own.
My design incorporates both the shoe/boot scraping ability and the more Western textile mat. I chose two materials. For the bulk of the frame, I opted to use 1×2 pressure-treated pine, along with a 3/4” pressure-treated plywood slab under the mat. I set my table saw to a 45-degree bevel and knocked the soft corners of the stock down to something a little bit more deliberate.
For the scrapers, I wanted something just a little stronger than p/t pine, so I opted for red oak runners. Again using my tablesaw at 45 degrees, I ripped the stock into the wedge shapes you see in the photo. The runners are gapped to allow dirt clods to fall through.
Before final assembly, I gave the pine a gunstock stain. I left a natural finish with two coats of polyurethane for the oak runners. This gives nice contrast to the finished piece, and calls attention to the piece so that first-time guests can grasp its purpose at a glance without further explanation.
Incidentally, Gin made the “Aloe There” mat for this piece as a gift.