Building with friends

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves.
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer.
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom.

Our bedroom has basically been the most ignored room in our house since we moved in.  There are so many plans that I have for this room, but we just haven't made the time to work on them.  It's a beautiful sized room, but we have filled it with things that are not exactly screaming bedroom sanctuary.

Originally, I had a whole description of the room written here.  But it was confusing and I kept forgetting to include the pictures that would help it make more sense, so I'll do a before and after soon.

But, until then....

We need night stands.  Badly.  I can't have the baby sleeping in the co-sleeper with my jewelry and the monitor for L.Soup and my phone all hanging out in there with her.  I also need the room to start looking more like a place that adults sleep, and less like a college dorm room.

My friend and I made a deal that if she helps me build these, I'll help her build an entertainment center in a few months when it's warmer.  So the plans were made, and a few weekends ago it was happening...

When mom takes too long putting the cart together, dad decides where we ride.

D. Soup and I made our way to the hardware store on Saturday, and Sunday was the day!  They were finally getting done!  She got to my house around 10, and we hung out for a little while and then got to work.  We got through the cutting part pretty quickly and efficiently.  This was the part I was more worried about, but apparently my friend was 100% confident in our cutting abilities.  We actually did much better than I expected, considering D. Soup never lets me cut anything.

All our wood cut up

The next step was assembly.  I was far more confident on this part, because I know how to use a drill and hammer.  We hit a few snags when instructions weren't completely clear, or when we discovered that our assistant (my friends mom) had not provided us with all the cuts we needed, so we had to steal a few pieces from the pile for the second night stand.  Not a huge deal, but it was confusing for a little while.

We also used the Kreg Jig to connect most of the pieces together, which took a bit of a learning curve.  But we got it figured out eventually.  It's actually really awesome!

Halfway there!

The other issue we ran into was the pine 2x2's we were working with were warped.  The nice wood in the lumber section at the hardware store was only available in 3 foot sections for 2x2's, and I was NOT paying $5.50 for a 3 foot section, especially when I needed 13 of them.  No thanks.

Luckily D.Soup found 8 foot pine 2x2's in another section, but they aren't as nice as the other materials.  Not a huge deal because I can easily sand them down to look nice.  The biggest issue was the warping, like I said.  It caused us a little trouble when putting the front bottom piece on.  It actually pulled the screw out of the board directly under the drawer.  We had to cut another board for that section that was a little longer and replace it so that it stayed attached.  That was frustrating.

For full disclosure:  We also had a slight mishap with the top boards.  We tried clamping all 3 pieces together and then screwing them together, and that caused the top piece to curve in the center.  I think I'm going to take it back apart and try again so that its more even across the top.

But in all honesty, you can hardly tell anything is wrong with it unless you are very seriously inspecting it.

Finished (unfinished) product!

I'm so happy with how it turned out.  Everyone was super impressed (and surprised... thanks a lot) at how good of a job we did, considering we don't use power tools very often.  Unfortunately we only got one done, because we had a few minor delays and we had to stop for eating and for babies and things of that nature.

The other one is in the works still, it's been a busy few weeks.  I'm hoping that it will get done soon so we will have a matching set.

I love mine already.