Building Furniture

Doug and I are really excited to build some of the furniture for our new house. We both took woodworking in school and have always wanted to have a workshop (or at least a workbench) for working on projects. I think Doug likes building things because it is fun and makes him feel manly. I like it because I am cheap and would much rather have custom furniture than buy the overpriced stuff available in Hawaii.The first project we tackled was the Tryed Side Table from Ana White's site. It is one of her beginner projects and we also really needed a side table!

We started by going to Home Depot and buying all of our tools. We got more and better tools than we needed because we really needed to have some good tools around for farm projects as well. Also, we knew that this would be just the first of many projects.

We got a miter saw, drill, bit set, kreg jig, kreg screws, countersink bits, countersink screws, wood filler, wood glue, safety protection, circular sander, clamps, squares, carpenter pencils, stain, and of course wood.

Our first step was to cut all of our wood to the lengths we needed and then set them out for our project.

Once we were done cutting our pieces we fastened together our table top using pocket holes. The kreg jig is awesome for doing pocket holes. This part took us awhile because we were just learning how to use all of our tools, but if we were to do it again, it would be super quick.

Our next step was to put together the legs and attach the aprons and inside supports to prevent the table from twisting.

After that, we simply just attached the top and we had ourselves a table!

The whole time, we were sanding pieces between steps. But once the table was built I really sanded it again and used a finer grit sand paper. Then I stained it and let it dry. The stain we used was Minwax English Chestnut and we used pine for our wood.

So here she is - our new table being awesome in the living room holding drinks and the remote.

As you can see, we still have patio furniture in the living room while we wait for our new furniture to be delivered. We hope to build a bed frame for the master bedroom next!