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I wish there were layman-friendly guides to building furniture and a nationwide initiative to pair home improvement stores with tool libraries. If you want to s

I wish there were layman-friendly guides to building furniture and a nationwide initiative to pair home improvement stores with tool libraries. If you want to save money and have quality furniture, building it yourself is the way to go, but good luck if you don't have your own wood shop. You should be able to build most modular furniture using two power tools, some jigs, and raw materials. It's sad that this isn't a common thing.

infecto 9y ago
I have never bought one but I liked the idea behind this company. Steelframe furniture that bolts together, so its durable yet easy to move. Not quite like building your own wood furniture but I would be more keen to buy this then a $1k+ sofa that is impossible to move and will not last that long. Edit: https://www.campaignliving.com/products/the-sofa?variant=38929849996 https://www.campaignliving.com/products/the-sofa?variant=389...
megaman22 9y ago
Everybody should be able to take wood shop in high school. It's hands-down the most useful class I took in those four years. You can go a long way with a decent hand-saw and a $30 Black & Decker cordless drill. People are weirdly impressed when you can knock together a book case or a picnic table. And probably the most fun project I've worked on in the last year was slamming together a tool shed over Labor Day weekend.
- mholmes680 9y ago
  Have you had tough times sourcing your raw materials for construction? I'm finding it tougher/expensive at least in New Jersey.
  - megaman22 9y ago
    I typically end up going through most of a lift of 2x4s at Home Cheapo to pick out enough decent ones to do a project. I'm sure they hate me... But I'm not going to buy janky twisted, bowed, knot and rot-filled lumber, especially for anything structural. Especially not at what they charge. The flip side of that is that the sawmills will take absolutely garbage logs in and saw them out these days. My father has taken up logging again pretty much full-time since he retired (he loves cutting trees, but you can't do it as anything but a hobby unless you're fully mechanized these days), and he's just astounded at what they'll grade logs out as. Stuff he used to have trouble getting accepted as pulpwood they're taking as saw logs and sometimes even veneer.
    - vailripper 9y ago
      Lowes / HD have absolute trash for product - at the very least I recommend people source from their local building supplier.
      - convolvatron 9y ago
        some of those places are still pretty expensive although their stuff is better or least graded better. exurban areas near where you live are likely to have reclaimed lumber, which is dirt cheap and may have added character. steel just got a lot cheaper - $10 for 20ft of 1/8 wall 1/2 x 1" cold roll welded tube. $6 for 1/2 x 1/2. building supply recyclers near where i live still have solid core doors piled up. i think the appeal of Ikea as stock is that its already cut down and comes with fasteners/brackets/etc. but you can come out ahead and have considerably more design flexibility if you know how to shop. i built maybe 60' in shelving for my bedroom. light steel frame, inset reclaimed pine flooring. the whole thing was probably $50 in materials. and when i leave it on the street when i move out, someone is likely going to want to take it its not going to look like an old cardboard box.
  - vailripper 9y ago
    Try to find a local mill - the product is MUCH higher quality and the prices are cheaper. http://www.woodfinder.com/ http://www.woodfinder.com/ is a good source for finding one. Also keep an eye out on Craigslist in the materials section, you'll often see sawyers posting material in there.
mholmes680 9y ago
re: laymen-friendly guides: http://www.ana-white.com/plancatalog http://www.ana-white.com/plancatalog I recently had to buy an entire house's worth of furniture due to a fire. We shopped every store we could find, and apart from any store that sources from the Amish, its all crap. The prices are obscene. We also got to see the innards of the old burned furniture... there's so much chip-board and laminating that I think there must be more plastic/glue than wood fiber. Just like electronics are being designed with obsolescence as a requirement, maybe more so is the furniture in your house... Its so much more rewarding to build a giant custom table and be able to grunt, "hey look what i did". OR even pick up some older pieces at an estate sale and upcycle with a new varnish or paint and some modifications.
- draker 9y ago
  The Ana white designs are okay for something short term but are prone to problems due to using only pocket screws and construction grade lumber. Veneered particle board would actually outlast from a construction perspective as it's less prone to expansion/contraction. Table tops will warp if you just screw the boards together and to the base. You can avoid this by gluing the panels then attaching to base with proper fasteners to allow for expansion/contraction. You can build them properly but this requires using true edge s4s lumber or removing the dimensional round edge with a table saw, band saw or jointer. Your glue up then requires a good number of large clamps. Even out of poplar, adler or basswood which are cheaper hardwoods you'll have $250-$300 in the table. Oak would be $500+. >there's so much chip-board and laminating that I think there must be more plastic/glue than wood fiber. Just like electronics are being designed with obsolescence as a requirement, maybe more so is the furniture in your house The problem is people want things cheap and nice looking. You can get a solid white oak table from Crate and Barrel for $1500; which isn't really that bad considering that's around $750 in ready to go s4s lumber from a mail order supplier. It's a lot cheaper to do as Ikea did and have a particle core with a 1/8" oak 'veneer'. Ikea's table is $600.
  - mholmes680 9y ago
    yeah, but marking it "rustic" solves all my rough-looking problems :) The warping is definitely happening, but my table is also an outdoor patio table so its fine in this case. Thanks for advice though... will help on later projects. I would like to get some time back this winter and make some inside pieces.. I agree with the pocket screws, but I think I can get around some of that with a joiner. I feel like a joiner and planer are the next tools I will invest in. >>people want things cheap and nice looking I agree 1000% but, after the aforementioned fire, I personally have a new perspective. "Collecting" things is way below being able to say I invested in myself/family and built something.

infecto 9y ago

I have never bought one but I liked the idea behind this company. Steelframe furniture that bolts together, so its durable yet easy to move. Not quite like building your own wood furniture but I would be more keen to buy this then a $1k+ sofa that is impossible to move and will not last that long. Edit: https://www.campaignliving.com/products/the-sofa?variant=38929849996 https://www.campaignliving.com/products/the-sofa?variant=389...

megaman22 9y ago

Everybody should be able to take wood shop in high school. It's hands-down the most useful class I took in those four years. You can go a long way with a decent hand-saw and a $30 Black & Decker cordless drill. People are weirdly impressed when you can knock together a book case or a picnic table. And probably the most fun project I've worked on in the last year was slamming together a tool shed over Labor Day weekend.

mholmes680 9y ago
Have you had tough times sourcing your raw materials for construction? I'm finding it tougher/expensive at least in New Jersey.
- megaman22 9y ago
  I typically end up going through most of a lift of 2x4s at Home Cheapo to pick out enough decent ones to do a project. I'm sure they hate me... But I'm not going to buy janky twisted, bowed, knot and rot-filled lumber, especially for anything structural. Especially not at what they charge. The flip side of that is that the sawmills will take absolutely garbage logs in and saw them out these days. My father has taken up logging again pretty much full-time since he retired (he loves cutting trees, but you can't do it as anything but a hobby unless you're fully mechanized these days), and he's just astounded at what they'll grade logs out as. Stuff he used to have trouble getting accepted as pulpwood they're taking as saw logs and sometimes even veneer.
  - vailripper 9y ago
    Lowes / HD have absolute trash for product - at the very least I recommend people source from their local building supplier.
    - convolvatron 9y ago
      some of those places are still pretty expensive although their stuff is better or least graded better. exurban areas near where you live are likely to have reclaimed lumber, which is dirt cheap and may have added character. steel just got a lot cheaper - $10 for 20ft of 1/8 wall 1/2 x 1" cold roll welded tube. $6 for 1/2 x 1/2. building supply recyclers near where i live still have solid core doors piled up. i think the appeal of Ikea as stock is that its already cut down and comes with fasteners/brackets/etc. but you can come out ahead and have considerably more design flexibility if you know how to shop. i built maybe 60' in shelving for my bedroom. light steel frame, inset reclaimed pine flooring. the whole thing was probably $50 in materials. and when i leave it on the street when i move out, someone is likely going to want to take it its not going to look like an old cardboard box.
- vailripper 9y ago
  Try to find a local mill - the product is MUCH higher quality and the prices are cheaper. http://www.woodfinder.com/ http://www.woodfinder.com/ is a good source for finding one. Also keep an eye out on Craigslist in the materials section, you'll often see sawyers posting material in there.

mholmes680 9y ago

re: laymen-friendly guides: http://www.ana-white.com/plancatalog http://www.ana-white.com/plancatalog I recently had to buy an entire house's worth of furniture due to a fire. We shopped every store we could find, and apart from any store that sources from the Amish, its all crap. The prices are obscene. We also got to see the innards of the old burned furniture... there's so much chip-board and laminating that I think there must be more plastic/glue than wood fiber. Just like electronics are being designed with obsolescence as a requirement, maybe more so is the furniture in your house... Its so much more rewarding to build a giant custom table and be able to grunt, "hey look what i did". OR even pick up some older pieces at an estate sale and upcycle with a new varnish or paint and some modifications.

draker 9y ago
The Ana white designs are okay for something short term but are prone to problems due to using only pocket screws and construction grade lumber. Veneered particle board would actually outlast from a construction perspective as it's less prone to expansion/contraction. Table tops will warp if you just screw the boards together and to the base. You can avoid this by gluing the panels then attaching to base with proper fasteners to allow for expansion/contraction. You can build them properly but this requires using true edge s4s lumber or removing the dimensional round edge with a table saw, band saw or jointer. Your glue up then requires a good number of large clamps. Even out of poplar, adler or basswood which are cheaper hardwoods you'll have $250-$300 in the table. Oak would be $500+. >there's so much chip-board and laminating that I think there must be more plastic/glue than wood fiber. Just like electronics are being designed with obsolescence as a requirement, maybe more so is the furniture in your house The problem is people want things cheap and nice looking. You can get a solid white oak table from Crate and Barrel for $1500; which isn't really that bad considering that's around $750 in ready to go s4s lumber from a mail order supplier. It's a lot cheaper to do as Ikea did and have a particle core with a 1/8" oak 'veneer'. Ikea's table is $600.
- mholmes680 9y ago
  yeah, but marking it "rustic" solves all my rough-looking problems :) The warping is definitely happening, but my table is also an outdoor patio table so its fine in this case. Thanks for advice though... will help on later projects. I would like to get some time back this winter and make some inside pieces.. I agree with the pocket screws, but I think I can get around some of that with a joiner. I feel like a joiner and planer are the next tools I will invest in. >>people want things cheap and nice looking I agree 1000% but, after the aforementioned fire, I personally have a new perspective. "Collecting" things is way below being able to say I invested in myself/family and built something.