Do you ever build your own furniture to save money? 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”!
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(Thanks Nikki!)
Very nice furniture! I don’t build furniture but for us I have a garden, and I mean a GARDEN. I have 18 raised beds and I can/preserve most of our food. I LOVE gardening and find it so useful and beneficial!