Use good materials
Try to find good materials. This doesn’t mean you need to use fancy wood like walnut or maple, the pine (or whatever it is) lumber at Home Depot works fine. It's not always easy finding good pieces if you're trying to stick to a budget, but it can be done. It may take a lot of rummaging through the 1x3 pile, but it's worth it. Starting with good materials is so much easier than trying to fix bad.
For this table, the grain and color on some of my 1x3s was different than the others, which I didn't think would matter since I'd be covering them with paint. It turns out, however, that the paint stuck a little differently on those pieces. Doing it again, I would have tried harder to get matching pieces.
Speaking of paint, if you are going to use spray paint, get the 2x coverage kind. It really does go a lot farther (further?) than the normal stuff. Also, buy enough to begin with so you don't end up making several trips to the store.
And regarding wood choice, if it's going to be painted anyways and you don't care about seeing too much grain, the pre-painted boards are the way to go. It's easier to find straight pieces without as many flaws than in the regular lumber, and it's not that much more expensive.
Measure twice, cut (hopefully) once
I know it's a cliché, but it's true. But don't just measure twice, check that you are measuring the correct length. Check your plan, it you're using one. For this console table, I needed to cut a 1x12 for the top surface. The plans called for two boards stacked on top of each other, with the bottom board 4 inches longer than the top. Not paying close enough attention, I cut them both to the shorter length, necessitating a lengthy fix (because I’m a cheapskate and didn’t want to buy a whole new 1x12). Part of that fix involved adding an extension and putting a 1x2 piece of trim all the way around to hide my fixes. The problem was that the table was just the right length to fit into nook in the living room. With my fix, it became 2 inches too long. Aaargghhh! If only I’d measured more!Don’t assume boards are square
I understand why “real” woodworkers buy raw wood and use a planer. Dimensional lumber, (they type you buy at a big hardware store and comes in measurements like 1.75” x 3.5”) is rarely perfectly square or straight. I found this out when attaching the legs to the top. Make sure you have a good square and use it every step of the way.Finishing
A few lessons on finishing.Use a pre-stain treatment when working with pine. Pine (your standard 1x and 2x boards) is rather porous. Consequently, if you are staining pine, the grain shows through very strongly, which you might not want. In this case I didn’t want it, but forgot to test my stain on a scrap before applying it to the tabletop.
Also, know what you want. After making several trips to the store to find the painted we wanted and putting on the first coat, we decided we didn’t like it. Sigh. Back to the store. As a side note, use a primer coat and Minwax Polycrylic for the clearcoat. Apparently this will prevent the finish from yellowing as it ages.
Why it doesn’t matter
Locking my keys in the car made me realize, none of the previous discussion really matters for making furniture.Reading woodworking blogs and flipping through Fine Woodworking at the library made me feel like my table was crap. I didn’t use dovetailed joints or fancy materials, didn’t patch up my mistakes well enough, didn’t sand sufficiently, etc. Then, while waiting for Katie to pick my up after locking my keys in the car, I wandered around a furniture store looking for inspiration. What I found was that “distressed” and “vintage” is very much in fashion. Many of the items I saw had a lot of blemishes—and these were professionally made and being sold for big bucks!