For our particular level of DIY skill and amount of free time, it is hard to take on major projects like knocking down walls or building decks all on our own — that’s when we tend to call in some professional help. However, we’re often itching to do something that is more involved, substantial, and challenging than a craft project. That sweet spot is furniture.
Today, we thought it would be fun to take a look back at some of our favorite furniture projects that we’ve showcased on this here blog over the last two years.
Naomi’s Picks
I don’t consider my woodworking or furniture building skills to be very advanced or developed, but these are definitely some of my favorite projects to work on! The piece I am most proud of is the box that I built for my recent bedroom makeover.
I needed something with unique dimensions to fit this particular space, and I am really happy with the final result. While the overall construction was straight forward, I got to try new things like using veneer edging and getting the opening for the hand-hold right.
For this same room, I transformed a pair of flat-packed side-tables from Home Depot into the perfect bedside tables that I was looking for.
In this project, the main challenge was figuring out how to install hanger bolts so that I could use the legs that I bought.
Finally, I’m still using my first foray into furniture building, a long console table to hold plants in my living room.
Man, that was a challenging project for me! But it worked out in the end. Now I’m itching to try another project!
Sage’s Picks
I bet you thought I would pick my coffee table, since I’m always going on about it. Well it is the piece of furniture that I’m proudest of building because it was such a stretch for me — but since I basically can’t shut up about it, I figured I’d pick some other projects that I tend to talk about less.
First up, the shoe storage I recently created in our entry/dining room/sun room:
It’s nothing fancy, but I created it out of a stacking brown cabinet that I bought off craigslist for $20 after being on the hunt for months, so I’m proud that I had the patience and vision to get the perfect piece out of what didn’t look all that appealing to begin with:
Next up, another piece that’s currently hanging out in my sun room: the library cart that I snagged from that high school we got to ransack before it was torn down. It didn’t look so hot when we encountered it sitting in a hallway and we actually passed it by a few times, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it so I finally rolled it out and shoved it into my car along with a lot of other stuff.
Painting it was easy, but the thing I love most is the wedge-shaped shelves I built so that plants can sit flat on it (since the shelves are sloped). I didn’t have a good spot for it for over a year and it had to hang out in our terrifying basement, but now it’s found the perfect home in our finished sunroom.
And lastly, one of my favorite projects of all time is one that maybe you wouldn’t normally consider furniture…but it’s a fairly substantial piece so I think it counts:
I built this leaning mirror a few years ago, and it’s still one of my favorite things about the bedroom. It was a fairly easy project that adds a nice dose of color to the bedroom, plus every time I look at it I think about how I built it the day after running my second marathon. That’s real commitment to DIY….
Joint Projects
For two people who live in different houses, we certainly have made an unnatural amount of furniture together! Of course no furniture post is complete without talking about that time someone shipped us a plastic cactus in the mail which we then turned into a side table, and which was then featured on Apartment Therapy. Yes, you read that right.
This blog has certainly made our lives more “interesting.”
We also collaborated on three furniture pieces that time that we were on reality TV, competing on Flea Market Flip.
We’re not sure if they’re out favorite creations ever, but they won us $5,000 so we’re definitely pretty fond of them.
There is also that time that we each transformed cabinets that we pillaged from a High School before it was torn down into furniture pieces that we actually wanted to have in our homes.
Sage’s has since even found a new home built into her amazing kitchen makeover, while Naomi has lazily kept hers right where it is as a pop of color in the ongoing dining room transformation. (Can you tell which one of us self-deprecating people wrote that sentence?)
So there you have it, some furniture projects we did — from painting, to reimagining in creative ways, to building from scratch. Is furniture the sweet spot for you like it is for us?
