How to Make a RELAXING Swinging Terrarium | Video Tutorial

*This post is sponsored by Kreg Tool. I have been compensated for my time and provided with product or payment in exchange. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. 

I get some crazy ideas from time to time. Like that one time I decided to pour epoxy resin over OSB sheathing and turn it into a dresser. Experiments are awesome things happen! Think about it, the first time a S'more was invented I bet someone in the room was thinking "you're going to stick that marshmallow where?". I've been itching to try two new techniques lately and finally thought up a cool idea to test them on. 

I've seen a few examples of bleached hardwood and knew that was a game I wanted in on. *Spoiler alert: it's ridiculously cool! I also have wanted to try my hand at drilling holes in glass. I know that sounds terrifying, but people do it all the time and after cutting the glass myself for my stacked cabinet kitchen remodel, I've discovered glass isn't nearly as intimidating as I once thought. 

Getting the House Ready to Sell

*This post is sponsored by The Home Depot. I have been compensated for my time and provided with product or payment in exchange. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. 

I know it seems like forever since I announced that we will be building a custom house. Trust me my friends when I say it's definitely felt longer to us! We thought we would have the house sold, be living with my in-laws, and hopefully broken ground by now. Don't worry! We're still moving forward with the plan. We've just been delayed a few months, but we're finally making progress! Here's what we've been up to:

Simple Metal Leg Beam Bench | Video + Plans

*This post is sponsored by The Home Depot. I have been compensated for my time and provided with product or payment in exchange. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. 

I love the look of metal and wood together, and I know I'm not alone. Not only does steel allow you to create shapes and profiles that aren't always possible with wood, I dig the clean and simple lines. I've done a couple steel projects in the past, like Faux-Brass Leg Media Console and my Hairpin Kitchen Table.  

Plywood Dresser with Dowel Legs | Video + Building Plans

*This post is sponsored by DAP Products and The Home Depot. I have been compensated for my time and provided with product or payment in exchange. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. 

I thought I was pretty much done building furniture for my house and then the other day I went to put away some of my twin boys' laundry. I built them their modern dresser/bookshelf combo a couple years ago and it's still going strong! (one of my favorite builds to date btw). But, I had totally forgotten that we placed a crappy little particle board 3-drawer unit in the closet for a little extra storage. It was an inexpensive hand-me-down and as you can imagine, after 9 years of abuse from two very active little boys, that little piece of junk was on it's last legs. 

How to Make an Outdoor Folding Table - Video Tutorial

*This post is sponsored by The Home Depot. I have been compensated for my time and provided with product or payment in exchange. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. 

PVC pipe is some pretty cool stuff.  I know you're thinking of sprinklers and dryer vents right now, but I've been stalking Pinterest and came across the most amazing stuff built from PVC and ABS pipe! 

The weather up north is getting nice and it's almost time to start camping again. We LOVE to forget our cell phones from time to time and venture into the woods (I even wrote a blog post about my favorite tools to take camping). I've been wanting to build a folding table for a little while I'm in the throws of my PVC obsession, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to incorporate some off-the-shelf pipe into a build. 

Stair Tread Arm Chair - Building Plans

*This post is sponsored by Kreg Tool. I have been compensated for my time and provided with product or payment in exchange. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. 

So building chairs is scary. There are so many factors you have to keep in mind, like angles and balance, which don't come to play with straight forward builds like tables and even beds. If a chair isn't the right height it doesn't function and if the back isn't angled properly, it becomes uncomfortable to use. 

I actually built a wood and leather sling chair like 5 years ago (which has been sitting in my back yard and is miraculously still holding together), but sling chairs don't have to take into account all those tricky factors. The seat I normally use to put my shoes on everyday broke recently, so I decided it was time to woman-up and tackle a modern arm chair build. 

WOOD Speaker Screen | How to Build Record Console Pt. 2

*This post is sponsored by DAP Products. I have been compensated for my time and provided with product or payment in exchange. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. 

Like most of my DIY furniture builder friends, I started out building things we needed. Before long, I had friends and family members asking for custom pieces. Before long I was building full time, advertising on Craigslist and taking custom orders from strangers. Custom work it hard guys! My hat goes off to all of you guys who work with customers. I'm so glad there are talented people who love designing and building for clients.  Luckily, I never had any nightmare experiences, but constantly worrying and second guessing myself was super stressful. 

Another thing I discovered when I was taking orders was how hard it was to build the same thing twice. I love the learning and creativity of putting a piece of furniture together, but trying to duplicate the exact same thing is huge challenge. So admittedly, I've avoided going back to old projects, even just to update them. But, I want to be a better builder and that includes fixing my mistakes (or less than ideal design choices). For example...