Raised bed garden for $40

I built some raised garden beds this Saturday. 

• 5/8 x 6 x 6 ft Cedar fence boards:  $22
• 5/8 x 4 x 6 ft cedar fence boards:  $10
• 2 x 2 cedar deck rails:  $8

Kitchen table, finally finished!

We’ve been without a kitchen table for quite some time now.  When we moved into our previous apartment, we underestimated the size of our sofa, and therefore didn’t have room for our dining table.  We’d been wanting to replace it for a while, and this was a good opportunity.  So we sold it, but then never bought a new one. When we moved into our new home, I decided I would build us a new table.  I started in November, but with the holidays, and a cranky baby, it took longer than anticipated.  So here are some photos of the process:

The New Dresser

So I finally finished our new dresser this week.  We were at Ikea a few weeks ago and saw this in the “As-Is” section for 45% off and couldn’t resist:

So after 4 years of marriage, we decided it was finally time to upgrade from plastic drawers to a real solid wood dresser.  With a little bit of sanding, painting, cursing, sanding, and painting again, this is the result:

I mentioned cursing.  A few lessons learned during this project: 

• Sand well so the paint sticks.  There were a few spots I missed that wanted to peel off at the slightest disturbance.
• Use a foam roller or Floetrol for a even finish.  My biggest challenge was that I used a brush to put on the first coat.  Since the paint was thick (paint+primer), it didn’t flatten out before it dried, leaving brush strokes, even with a brand new brush.  Using a foam roller or additive would have prevented this (or an oil-based paint, but they’re smelly).  I ended up sanding down the ridges and using the foam roller on top to get an even coat.
• Latex paint takes a long time to fully cure – up to 30 days.  Heat and/or air movement helps.  Sanding when it’s dry but not cured is no fun, and it gums up easily.

Our “new” coffee table

I built our coffee table almost 2 years ago and finished it with a dark stain some previous tenants had left in our apartment (we were cheap).  It looked good at the time.  Since then, I’d come to dislike  the color, so recently, I sanded it off and refinished with a lighter stain. 

Lessons in furniture building

For the past 6ish months I've been building a console table (thin table designed for placement against a wall).  Now it's finally done.  It's been quite an process, and very frustrating at times.  I thought I'd share some of the lessons I've learned, in no particular order.

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!

$5 TV Table Make Over

Found this little table in a thrift store for $5. It had nasty orange marmalade looking glaze on it and lots of paint splatters etc. Colin tightened up the joints, sanded it down, and repainted it. It’s just a temporary table, but I’d say it’s a major upgrade from the rubber made box my plants used to live on.
Of course when I saw a brand new clone of our table at Wal-mart the week after for $8, I just about had a big-box breakdown. Was it worth the time and effort? Probably not. But I like it all the same.

A little Pintrest Lovin’: Gallery Shelves

Finally finished our long planned over-the-couch picture shelves.We made white ones for my parent’s at Christmas that were a little longer, but these fit just perfectly in our little living room. The frames are under-a-buck thrift store finds (DI for those of you in Utah). Everything got spray painted the same color.
The shelves themselves are inspired by a genius Ana White design.  Her Blog is like DIY crack. Colin has already begun to show early signs of a junkie. He’s coffee table, bench, book self, and half a console table (work in progress) in “Knock off Wood” Fashion. Next thing you know he’ll be squaring up the condiments in the fridge. I’m pretty sure that given enough screws and a pocket hole jig, he could conquer the world (or at least make it a bit more sturdy).