This is a guest post from my reader Nikki…
We love our 111 year old house. It has original woodwork, high ceilings, and lots of charm. But there are a lot of different problems you face with such an old home. The weird nooks and crannies, shifting and settling and any additions previous owners had done.
One such odd spot in our house is a window gable in the master bedroom. We tried all sorts of solutions as to what to put there. We tried chairs, tables, baskets and nothing looked or fit right. I knew it would be a great place to have a window seat with some storage underneath. When I started looking around I couldn’t find one that fit the dimensions of the space and getting one built would have been way out of our price range.
I did some research online and found some building plans and a lot of how to videos, I also got some great books from the library on building furniture. I found Ana White’s website www.ana-white.com. It has really easy to follow plans. I used her plans as a guide and built a window seat to fit my specific dimensions. It wasn’t too difficult and for about $25 and 4 hours of work I had a custom built piece for the room. I saved us over $350 building it myself and got exactly what I wanted. I then found a foam pad at an estate sale for 25 cents and sewed a cover for it to sit on top.
Since then I have gone on to build patio chairs and tables, a coffee table, bookshelves, frames, and artwork. It is amazing how much money we have saved and how great it is to customize the pieces we want. A saw, drill, hammer and tape measure are all you are going to need to get started. I am slowly beginning to build my collection of tools. I am the only woman I know that was excited to get a circular saw for Mothers Day!
I have made many things as gifts and have a few orders in to build things for friends. Next on my list to build is a new dining room table and an entertainment center for our family room. I get so much satisfaction working on different projects and knowing that they were built with quality materials that will last for years. I also love that my 3 boys call all the tools in the house “Mom’s tools”!
(Thanks Nikki!)
Laurie says
Terrific posting! Never heard of Ana White, but I’ve been dying to build a dining room table for a long time, so I’m definitely excited to check out her website. Your pictures look really, really good!
Robin says
I love Ana White! My husband and I just finished a farmhouse bed for our two year old a couple months ago. We needed to move him out of the crib before baby #2 came and wanted a solid wood bed but couldn’t afford to spend much. That thing is beautiful and everyone can’t believe that I built it.
Annie says
My husband is currently working on one of the farmhouse beds for our daughter. Next on the list are 2 dollhouse bookshelves for our girls. Love this site!!!
Mary says
I love Ana White’s site! If only I had a workspace…oh, and a saw!
Ani W says
A few years ago, we had bought sofas that were on the high side, as far as height goes. All of the end tables we found that were the right size were WAY TOO expensive…like $500 for one end table expensive. So we decided to build one ourselves. My hubby and I spent less than $100 (I don’t remember the exact amount) on something that would’ve cost us at least $400 more…and we built it to our size and requirements. So many people have been very surprised when we tell them we built it. We’ve had it about 6 years and the table is still in great condition!
And we aren’t expert builders by any means. That is the first pc of furniture we had ever built.