I built it (mostly) myself!

For months now I've been dreaming of stuff I could build myself. It started when a friend of mine, Alicia, posted a beautiful table she made inspired by the site Knock-Off Wood. KOW quickly became one of my very favorite sites. Ana posts easy plans to build furniture that is a knock off of popular furniture like Pottery Barn. She gives you the instructions for what you need to buy, the cuts to make, and then how to put it all together. I have a long list of things I want to make including a picnic table, play table for the boys, a rustic bench, and a ton more. Unfortunately, although cheaper than buying all new furniture, you still need to buy the wood, and so I waited patiently until we had a little extra cash before starting our first project. One thing on my list of things to do was a recycling center so our garbage cans wouldn't be sitting under the desk smelling up my computer time. Hubby picked that one idea out of my whole list of things that he would like to get done first.

This week our two older boys are up in Idaho at Grandma Cindy's house so we had a little more free time and he figured this would be the perfect time to get started. I drew up some modified plans because we have a large kitchen but only one tiny wall of available space, so I had to make it fit our needs. We headed to Home Depot on Monday to pick out our wood. I got to be in charge in picking out the wood and having the nice worker there make the cuts I needed. They weren't perfect, but a lot better than we could have done with just a circular saw. Because the cuts weren't exact, the end result wasn't perfectly square, but it still looks and works just fine. I really did do most of the work myself. Hubby made an excellent human clamp while I screwed boards together, and he did some sanding when my arms got tired. He also did the angle cuts on the inside braces with our skill saw (boy would I love a miter saw!). We got the whole thing put together that day. Then on Wednesday I painted it. A coat of primer, then two coats of semi-gloss white. Thursday morning I ran to the store for some spray-on poly and put a couple coats of that on. Finally this morning I was able to bring it into the kitchen, reassemble it, and start using it! Here it is:


The inside. I added a removable shelf for our recycle box on the top. I also used those little brown shelf holders from a bookshelf as stoppers for the base.

All ready to go! (Yes, I use an old diaper box for our recycle box, cut to fit the space just right.)

And my adorable little helper.

Thank you Ana for inspiring me to make something! I am very proud of myself (and Hubby) for our first piece of homemade furniture! I can't wait to make something else.