When it comes time to find a new piece to make over or materials for making something, there are a lot of places to look besides the high priced stores. Here are some ideas for ways to find cheap furniture and other stuff for your next project.
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Custom Built in Cabinets – A Fancy Fireplace
When we found the new house, it had just been “flipped”. Almost everything was done. The one obvious item left, was in the living room, around the fireplace. The house is 50 years old. Why no one had added custom built in cabinets during that time, I won’t ever understand.
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A Quick Padded Headboard – Or another Ikea Hack
Our move was quick, and in the winter. We needed additional storage, so… we bought an Ikea Brimnes bed frame. It has large drawers under it, but it’s very plain. Not how I would have built one at all, but very workable.
The problem is that we needed it to be about 4″ off the wall. I hate when my pillows fall behind the bed! Solution, a short, padded headboard.
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Upholstering a Chair ain’t so bad – Learn the Basics
My wife decided that the side chair in our sun room, just didn’t work for her anymore. So… let’s upholster it she says. (We??? I know what that means) Just how hard can upholstering be?
Here is the chair we started with. I didn’t think it was too bad.
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Hall Tree – How to build one from scratch
Recently a friend asked me to design and build a hall tree for her entryway. Her husband farms, and she was tired of his muddy boots on her floors! She sent me some pins (Pinterest) of what she was thinking. I designed the piece two different ways for her using Google Sketchup. One as a corner unit, the other as a single bench.
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Getting started with a small shop (or no shop)
Sometimes, when we watch those DIY or woodworking shows, it looks like you need a huge shop and a lot of expensive tools to do anything. Well… it’s not true. I started with a few hand tools in the driveway, and stepped up to a skill saw and a sander, and a small shop, when I got married. With this massive set of tools (ha ha) I built our first dining table (with benches), a bookcase, end tables, an entertainment center and a chair. Now, this wasn’t the most beautiful stuff, it was a knock of of Cargo Furniture’s style (it was supposed to look like it was made from crates). These pieces of furniture lasted my growing family almost 15 years, before we sold them to someone else in need of some solid basic furniture.
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