House to Home: DIY furniture project 1

Hi, It's Sizzle with the latest installment on my house to home series.  One of the first things we realized when we moved into this house was that we lost a lot of storage.  Our old house was a 1950s build and it had a TON of built in storage.  Here is our newer 1990 house there are not built ins.  We needed storage.  I have a ton of books and games and my craft room - well I had a lot of storage in our old house and here I am utilizing the loft area so I knew I couldn't get organized until I had somewhere to put stuff.  

I have wanted to build my own furniture for a long time and I have studied the blog of ana-white.com (she gives free plans).  I have a folder full of projects I wanted to do but I needed some tools so I saved and when we moved here I got a sliding compound miter saw, a power sander and a kreg jig (a pocket hole jig).  

Here is my workshop:

Lucky for me my husband bought a truck that was too big to fit in the garage so I took over!  He has gotten into it too so don't worry.  This bookcase was built using Ana Whites new book the Handbuilt Home.  I want to build every thing in the book.  Here is the link.  The guys at the hardware store all ask me where I got it and say what a great book it is.

My first build wasn't perfect.  I decided to make it higher - 6 feet instead of cutting the 6 ft boards by an inch but I forgot to adjust the side trim and because of that the sides are a little off.  Here she is put together but unfinished.

The hardest part of building your own furniture is finishing it.  It took me a week to finish this one but I learned that if you are doing a stain/paint mix that you should do it before you assemble!!   Here she is finished - I still have to put cabinet doors on the bottom section but I got the wrong kind of hinges!  I will post a new photo when she is 100% done with doors and everything

I used Kona stain by rust-oleum and General finishers gel stain in Java.  The Java stain is warmer.  I just filled in with the Java plus that stain is thick and can cover any oops with the paint.  The white paint I used is Behr Polar Bear - It was in the garage when we moved in so I used it up.

Can't wait to get the right hinges and build the second one.

Hope you enjoy.

You can do it too.

Sizzle