Wood Working

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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 Remove Trim without Wall Damage

Here’s a simple way to remove trim without putting decent holes in your wall or pulling some of the paint and drywall paper off – it may take longer to remove the trim but overall, it’s faster than having to patch holes from your prybar or mud, sand, and texture where the wall comes with your old trim. Tools you’ll Need Utility Knife: My Olfa is going on 10 years (similar knife) I like that I can extend the blade...

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 –...

How to Build a Dollhouse Bookcase

There are great plans online for dollhouse bookcases and we wanted to build one with slightly different features – roof slope and dimensions. The inspiration is a Pottery Barn Dollhouse Bookcase. However, we wanted to put a small twist on the design – a light take on a midcentury modern style roof and a dollhouse that was 36w x 42h x 12d. Here are some handy resources and considerations when modifying the design. How to Modify the Design and Build...

How to Build a Vanity – Pottery Barn Hack

We set out looking for the perfect vanity for our daughter’s room makeover. There were plenty of options online, but none of them quite fit the space. Nichole found some inspiration in a Pottery Barn vanity (retails for around $300) but it was to small for the space. For about $120 in materials, we set out to design and build our own version. Overall our finished project was 32w x 17.5d x 29h. Here’s the Pottery Barn Chelsea Kids Vanity...

6 Steps to Build Wooden Butterfly Slat Art

In the process of updating our daughters room we decided to build a custom wooden slat picture frame with butterflies. This unique piece was easy and fun to make. Here is our design and build process. Project Design Considerations: With each project, even the simple ones, there are design considerations I go over trying to implement Nichole’s vision. To help prime your creative process, here are some design considerations. #01: Size of Wood Slats and Space Between. We opted for...

How to Make a Floating Picture Frame – Rabbet Edition

Nearly two months ago we set about creating a floating picture frame (see it here) and I wanted to spruce it up a wee bit. I invested in a proper “thumb friendly” router (like this one) and a rabbet bit set (this one). The design was to create a picture frame with no visible nails or the need to fill nail holes. Here’s the adventure and my first experience creating a double rabbet joint. PROJECT DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS #01: Measurements You’ll...