DIY

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How to Calculate Undermount Drawer Slide Lengths

Determining the right size drawer slides can be tricky the first time – especially if you want the drawer slides ready to go as your building and not hold up your project. Here are simple methods for calculating your drawer slide lengths for overmount and flush mount drawers. Project Considerations and Measurements You’ll Need #01: Determine if your cabinet will have a back panel. Usually a 1/4-inch piece. #02: Make the decision to use under-mount drawer slides (I’ll show you...

How to Install Undermount Drawer Slides the Easy Way

Undermount drawer slides are the way to go! This post will show you the simple method to mount your drawer slide hardware, get it into position perfectly level, and move on to building your drawer to fit it properly. Before you begin, make sure that you check out How to calculate the size of under-mount drawer slides that you need. Step 01: Cut Rear Bracket Mounting Pieces Rather than doing some fancy complicated yoga moves while you try to measure...

How to Build a Cabinet Carcass

Building a custom cabinet is a rewarding project that is possible without an expensive tool shop. This post walks through the first step in building your custom cabinet – the carcass. There are three things that when we started this project that I wish my research had enlightened me on: #01: How to size the carcass. #02: How to calculate the drawer mount hardware length. #03: How does the door overhang on hinges impact the door and drawer placement. Read...

DIY Custom Closet – Update Your Bifold Doors

We created a custom built-in closet in our hallway to replace our boring bifold doors and it turned out fantastic – we eliminated those pesky bifold doors and ugly wire racks. We built custom box-joint drawers with mortise and tenon face frames and built-in shelves. All of this using affordable tools and picking up skills along the way. We’ll show you how we did it with tips and tricks, including ways to flex your woodworking skills if you so desire...

How to Build a Dado Sled

A table saw is a fantastic tool and with a simple “sled”, it can be safer and easier to make some great furniture pieces. We built a simple sled to test our skills at creating box joints and eventually doors and drawer faces. Here you’ll find some tips and tricks to build your own Table Saw Dado Sled. Halfway through a recent project, our first table saw gave up the ghost – as you can see, we have simple contractor-style...

How to Create a Box Joint Jig

Box joints add flair to your cabinet boxes and give them a professional look. It’s relatively easy to make a simple box joint jig that clamps to a Dado sled and get great looking and consistent results. Some Useful Tools to Help with this Build – Digital Calipers and Setup Blocks Here’s how we built ours! 1. Determine the Size of the Box Joints. We used 1/2-inch. We bought a fancy Diablo dado set and put on the correct combination...

How to Create a Wood Accent Wall

We have always had an “accent” wall in our son’s room. Even when we repainted his room to create the Star Wars Boys Room, we kept a wee accent. A recent overhaul of our daughters room and some need for balance between siblings gave us the idea to punch it up — and having a bunch of free wood that Nichole found on our local marketplace that was begging to be made into something. We drew many options of what...

How to Brighten Fireplace Grout and Stone for $50 – Schmearing DIY

Schmearing a fireplace can positively change the way your fireplace looks – our reason was to brighten up our room! When we moved in, we wanted to update this fireplace. It’s in our family room, and we wanted to keep the cozy look of stone (which matches our exterior stone), but wanted a different look. Here is how we’ve had it for a few years, after Ryan updated the mantle to a new beautifully made mid-century model wood mantle (which...

DIY Pottery Barn Dollhouse Bookcase – Finishing

There were a lot of lessons from this series of projects for our daughters room. I had this wonderful thought about spraying with an airless sprayer — it was a spectacular failure. Such is life. At least you can sand your way out of those failures.. Involve the Kiddos One of the great things about this project series was our daughter’s design and finish input. We didn’t deliver on her request for a rainbow painted bookcase but we did keep...

DIY Pottery Barn Girls Desk Hack – Finishing Touches

We are so happy with the way this custom Chelsea Pottery Barn -esque vanity turned out for our daughter and the finishing touches. There was some finishing challenges and some good lessons on the journey as we undertook our first furniture project with red oak wood. See our Instructions for Building the Pottery Barn Vanity here! Time for Sanding the Vanity To clean up some of the drawer face markings from routing I put my oscillating tool to use –...