All posts filed under: furniture

Turned Bowl

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This week, I turned a bowl out of dry mystery hardwood on the lathe (comment below if you recognize this wood species). This is my first turning project, and my first bowl. It’s nothing fancy, but I’m proud of it. I can tell I will be doing a lot of lathe projects, it is very addictive. I cut this board into squares, and glued the pieces together to make more of a cube. Then I cut the corners off on the miter saw. I drilled a pilot hole for the wormwood screw to mount it on the lathe. I shaped the outside of the bowl first, and cut a mortise on the bottom so I could mount it on my Nova G3 chuck. Next, I hollowed out the inside of the bowl. I drilled the bowl to depth with my largest forstner bit. This really made finding the final depth a lot easier. All that was left was to remove material to the thickness I wanted. I finished the bowl with Minwax Polycrylic. Since this …

5 Board Bench

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I’m a huge fan of Steve Ramsey from Woodworking for Mere Mortals (link). This week, I made a 5 board bench inspired by Steve’s design. It’s a quick and simple project, and could be completed with limited tools. I started out by cutting this poplar board to length for all my pieces. This wood has lots of character. It’s old, and is full of beetle holes. I butted the bottom of the legs together, and drew a circle with a compass. I used a jigsaw to cut this portion out. I used the table saw to cut the sides at an angle. I cut the same angle on the rails, where they connect to the top. I connected the rails to the legs using pocket screws, then connected the top. I used Minwax Hickory gel stain to darken up the piece. I wanted this bench to look old, so I sanded some of the stain off. I finished it with Minwax water based Polycrylic. I really enjoy this design, and it was super easy to …

Gentlemen’s Caddy

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I started out this week’s project with the intent of making a padauk and walnut box. However, my plans were thwarted at the last moment by my router. I ended up leaving off the top, and adding a divider. The result… the Gentleman’s Caddy.   I had plenty of padauk and walnut lying around the shop, so I cut all my pieces for the glue up. I glued up the boards and clamped them in a matching pattern. Since I was going to run these pieces through the planer, I wasn’t worried about cutting them to the same length. I haven’t made a planer sled, so I usually have to cut the ends off from snipe. I cut the boards to length using my miter saw, at a 45 degree angle. This isn’t a very large piece and won’t be used to hold a lot of weight, so I didn’t worry about using splines. I cut a rabbet with my router table, and inserted a piece of backer board for the bottom. I created the …

Cedar Table with Tapered Legs

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I received an unexpected surprise this week. My Step-Father brought over some wood he’d been keeping in his shop for the last 40 years or so. This wood belonged to a friend of his that past away. I didn’t have a lot of material to work with, but I decided I wanted to make something nice out of it. Something of an heirloom, to pass down, just as it had been passed to me. The cedar had darkened quite a bit over the years, but came back to life after a few passes through the planer. I cut the boards for the top, and joined them together with a biscuit joiner. I wanted the overall look to be rustic, so I didn’t worry about milling out any knot’s or holes. I cut the legs into 1.5″ strips, and glued them together. I squared them up by running them through the jointer and planer. I created a jig to taper the legs, and ran them through the table saw. This is the first time I’ve tried these …

Wall Mounted Bottle Opener

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This week, I made a simple wooden bottle opener. I recessed two magnets into the back to catch the bottle caps after opening, which really adds to the functionality of it. I used scrap cedar and pine from around the shop to make this piece, but you can use anything you have available. I glued the pieces together and let them dry. After about an hour, I took them over to the miter saw, and cut off the edges. Now that my boards have nice clean edges, it’s time to clean up the gaps on the face with my planer. The planer is my new favorite piece of equipment lately. No matter how messy the glue up is, the planer shaves it down nicely. One of the best tips I learned, was to use “Waste Stock” around your work pieces when cutting, to avoid tear out. Here I’ve surrounded my work piece with MDF. It really creates much cleaner edges than from sawing alone. I’ve also used masking (or painter’s tape) when cutting, but I usually …

Tablet Stand

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I love using my tablet. It makes life so much easier. I can quickly look at videos, pictures, read the news, etc. etc. What I don’t like, however, is having to hold the tablet while trying to perform other tasks such as cooking, playing video games, and of course woodworking. I’ve seen a lot of plans out there, but my favorite is the simple wood stand. I’ve made a few of these stands in the past, so I decided to liven this project up a little. I found a cutting board kit at Woodcraft containing pre cut stock of some of my favorite woods; Cherry, Maple, and Purple Heart. Since the boards are already precut, all I had to do is glue them together. A little Tightbond and some clamps, and it was good to go. This is the first time I used a planer, and I am hooked! I’ve always had to be mindful of glue squeeze-out. This usually resulted in using inadequate amounts of glue on my projects. Since I knew any squeeze-out …

Refinished Coffee Table

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  Things used on this project: 60 Grit sand paper MinWax Dark Walnut Stain Home Made Polyurethane Burnt Almond Valspar Paint (chalk paint supplies) Natural hair paint brush (optional) Antiquing Glaze This is a coffee table that has been sitting in our attic for seven years.  It is a typical coffee table that you would find in any furniture store, and I for the life of me have no idea where we picked it up.  Ever since we started refinishing and painting furniture I have been wanting to get my hands on this thing. First things first, getting this table down from the attic which was not easy since the staircase is EXTREMELY narrow and it is kind of heavy.  So that was fun. 🙂 Then sanding.  I used a 60 grit sand paper with an orbital sander.  This is a veneer top table and a very HEAVY layer of poly.  So………four sanding pads and two and half days later this beautiful top was under all that dark stain!  Once the top was clean and …

Shadow Box

Shadow Box

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Our son recently got a rock tumbler, and needed something to display his finished rocks. So we made a shadow box to put them in. I’ve never worked with glass before, so I was really excited to try this out. I’m making the shadow box out of left over poplar boards from the table top redux. This will make good use of otherwise scrap wood, and save us some money too. I used the table saw to cut the boards down to the height I wanted the box to be. Then I used the router to route out groves that will hold the glass and base. I used the miter saw to cut the ends at 45 degrees. Since I always have trouble with spill out, I decided to stain the boards before glueing them together. I stained the boards with Minwax Dark Walnut stain, and let them dry overnight. The next day, I cut the plexiglass to the size I needed with a razor blade. I inserted the glass into the top groves and …

Bedroom Furiture Updates

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With the living room out of things to repurpose, and paint, it is on to the bedroom. The furniture is a little over ten years old. It’s still nice but has some wear, so we decided to get the ‘ol orbital sander out to see if stain was an option to make it beautiful again. Low and behold, it looked fantastic. Forty-five minutes later (and a few odd stares from the neighbors) I had a wonderful top to stain. I decided to use Dark Walnut stain by Winwax. I LOVE this stain. It really brings out the grain in the wood, and looks so pretty once the poly is on it. Then I mixed my handy dandy chalk paint with non-sanded grout (recipe here). I used the color Anvil from Home Depot (I believe the Martha Stewart collection). We absolutely LOVE IT!  There is not a bit of distressing on it just paste wax.  I prefer to use paste wax, it is a bit softer than finishing wax. It is easier to use on the …

Dresser to Entertainment Center

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Ok, this is something we’ve never tried before. Re-purposing furniture has always been scary to me for some reason. I guess it’s the thought of adding on to another person’s (or machine’s) finished product with my woodworking ability, that makes me nervous. But I must say, it was much easier adding on to a piece that was already squared up. All I had to do was align my additions to the wood that was already there, which took a lot of pressure off me to check (and recheck) my measurements. Now that I’ve got my first re-purpose under my belt, I can see many more projects like this in my future. We found an interesting dresser at a local thrift store. We really liked the detail in the drawers, not to mention it was the perfect size to fit in our living room. We decided to build the shelves into the middle section since there were cabinet doors in this area, with smaller drawers inside. After removing the inside drawers, I used an oscillating saw …