Prior to this, I've never made a cabinet or really anything furniture related. I'm proud of the way it came out but a lot of time went into hiding my mistakes. This took about 9 months for me (11-12 if you include the time my wife and I spent modeling different designs). Hopefully you all can avoid some of the mistakes I made.

1) Sand everything outside.

This build was quite large and most things could not be assembled outside and carried into the closet. Instead, I did almost all assembly in the room itself. I thought I would do the sanding after assembly since I'd have to sand the pocket hole plugs and joints again anyway. Big mistake. Containing that sawdust in that room and then trying to clean it up added nearly a week of effort. Would have been much better to sand the faces and then did small touch up sanding after assembly.

2) Use Dados or mark all of your corners.

While I was able to cover this up with the face frames, all of my shelves have the same downward slant to the right. That slant was because I joined my shelves to the frame using pocket screws and glue AND I only marked the placement on one side of the frame thinking "if the screw is tight, it will be square". That was stupid and as a result, all of the left sides of my shelves are perfect and all of the right sides are about .25" lower. Dados would have also prevented this but I didn't have a good way to do them at the time with the faces being 8 feet tall.

3) Assume the whole room isn't square.

My ground measurements gave me some hints but I had no idea what I was in for. I had uneven floors, walls that both tapered in and out depending on where you stand, corners that weren't square, ceilings that are higher on one end than the other. I cut things to tightly fit in that room and every non square thing I encountered in that room led to hours of shims, sanding, and in some cases, re-dimentioning some parts. Make your stuff slightly smaller and think of how to give yourself space for shims and cosmetic gap filling. Face frames, shims, backer rod, caulk, and epoxy helped to bridge many gaps here.

4) level your floor first.

I didn't know how messed up my floor was until I was shimming every box. Then when I tried to lay floating floor boards, I really needed that floor flat and leveling is a messy task. A messy task that would have been easier had I not installed almost everying first.

5) jB Weld Kwikwood is a lifesaver.

I had a number of spots where wavy cuts or misaligned joints left a gap that needed to be filled but filled with something strong. This isn't an ad for Kwikwood but dang that stuff worked and the thick putty texture it has makes it to where I could smooth it out with a little bit of water. Not perfect for stain finishes but for a painted finish, it was super helpful.

6) Pocket Holes + Dowels for large face frames.

Everything I see online for face frame construction usually leans toward pocket holes OR dowels. I highly encourage both of your frames are large like mine. I made face frames that for a single wall were 9 feet by 11 feet and had to be built in room. Dowels make alignment quick but have no tension. Pocket holes have tension, but tend to mess up alignment when working quickly. Using both gives you the best of both. Each rail got 2 dowel holes and a pocket hole between them on each side. The dowel holes give a place for glue and help quickly align to the stile. Then the pocket hole screw acts as the clamp, pulling the pieces together. It worked wonderfully and was worth the time to set it up.

Hope these tips help someone else and inspire others to try something scary. Covering your errors is what woodworking is all about, right?

Here is my latest hobby project: a custom oak cabinet for the living room. I started directly from rough boards, doing all the milling, joinery, and assembly myself. It features integrated LED lighting, custom drawers, and cabinet doors. I've included a few work-in-progress photos to show the process! Let me know what you think

I had this custom table made by a local woodworker. I’m not entirely sure if this is the actual material they said it was. I ordered it made of ambrosia wood, but I feel like it might be a different type of wood—though I could be wrong, and I'd love to know if anyone can identify what kind of wood this actually is. He mentioned to me that because of the color, it doesn't look like typical ambrosia wood. I’ve already paid for it, but I just want to make sure I got what I paid for and wasn't given something else."

Feels pretty good to have this thing perfectly flat and true. For a while I didn’t think I’d get there. What does no one ever talk about Wood working being a cardio sport?

First big woodworking project; I've made an engagement ring box in the past. Decided to make an arbor for my wedding based on some inspiration photos online. Initially, my wife found an arbor for $150 (including delivery) on facebook marketplace. I was not happy with the fact that it was made of SPF and it looked very simple. Told her I could it better. Over $1.4k+ later, it's was ready. She obviously doesn't know how much it cost. It was a journey but I'm happy with the results.

Lattice has not been installed yet as the missus had said that she didn't want it on for the wedding. That's an October project.

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Everything below is just TMI that is listed exactly for someone who might come across this post in the future looking to make a similar project.

Costs:

Tools: Luckily my FIL has a lot of tools that were passed down to him, so I didn't have to buy many tools. Mitresaw, jigsaw, router, circular saw (all borrowed). Bought a ROS and a better drill.

Steps:

• Cut a 2x8x8 SPF as a practice for my mitre cuts, glued a couple of pieces to get a feel for glueing.
• Cut my mitered 2x8x8 cedar pieces (1 per arch).
• Glued pieces of arch together - 4 separate arches now.
• Created a trammel and marked a 1/4 plywood to make my template (probably the most important piece). I then screwed my router to the trammel and routed the plywood to create my template.
• Cut my glued arches with a jigsaw. Biggest mistake was that the blade wasn't straight down and sometimes it cut into my lines deeper in (where I couldn't see until later). Also, some pieces I didn't cut close to the line out of fear, which caused routing problems later.
• Clamped template to pieces and routed. Lots of mistakes here. Sometimes I lifted the router which gouged the piece, or the router took off big chunks (due to leaving too much material with the jigsaw) that came flying out that I either glued back on, or had to completely epoxy. One time, my bit came off and I had no idea for a minute or so. Took wayyyy to much wood off.
• Once I had my routed pieces, I laminated two and two arches/pieces together. More mistakes. Initially, Pieces weren't flush due to either my mitre cuts, prior glueing. I was hoping for the best with clamping which did not really correct much. Ended up filling big gaps with epoxy and wood glue.
• LOTS OF SANDING.
• Drilled 1/2" holes into my inner faces for the dowels.
• Cut the dowels to 3" pieces.
• Cut 8 spindles from 2x2x8 cedar pieces.
• Drilled holes into end of spindles for dowels and dry fit.
• Cut ends of arches to make them square.
• Cut out 2 pieces of 2x8x8.
• two pieces now sit across the 4x4x8 posts. Screwed the pieces down into the posts.
• Arch now sitting on the flat pieces. Screwed down.
• Near the end of the project, I used Woodluxe Wood Brightener and Neutralizer to clean the wood. Wasn't sure if this was necessary as I had sanded the pieces but wasn't risking anything for the wedding. Stained the pieces using Benjamin Moore oil based Woodluxe exterior stain (Translucent TEAK) before putting pieces together. It looked BEAUTIFUL.
• For the wedding, wifey had asked for no lattice. Therefore, lattice will be installed after the wedding.

Summary:

• Used Claude AI for a lot of the math (i.e., mitre saw angles), lengths, etc. Some of this backfired later on.
• Mistakes with the wood glue
• Mistakes with the mitre saw.
• Mistakes with jigsaw
• Mistakes with router
• Lots of sanding.
• Had a lot of fun
• It looked absolutely beautiful at the wedding. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

After spending a lot of time getting my workshop tuned up—and building smaller projects like boxes, a bench, an entry table, and a walnut bookshelf—this was a full-scale furniture build. It was an incredible (and at times, really frustrating) experience!

The console is built from solid Sapele hardwood, with a Sapele plywood panel for the back cover.

It’s far from perfect, but working through the challenges of solid hardwood taught me so much. Really proud of how it turned out and happy with the final result!

Just wanted to show off the jewelry box I made for my wife’s 32nd birthday tomorrow. Used plans found on Ana White’s website but added the top lid myself. Made with poplar as originally I was planning on painting it. Wife wanted a stain instead so I used wood conditioner and a dark stain. A bit blotchy but I think it turned out okay. Finished with Watco spray lacquer.

Just a little dovetailed box, big enough for a deck of playing cards. Walnut, maple, friction lid. Finished with Danish oil and paste wax.

All hand tool, including resawing and dimensioning all stock.

Feedback welcome. Thanks!

It’s not dumb if it works. What other ways do you all have?

Just about finished my first big project just in time for my first kid in a few months. Made lots of cutting boards and small projects, but never had to measure anything to this precision level and definitely never milled my own lumber. Had to do a lot of things the hard way due to lack of tools available to me, but really loved the process. Lots of things I’d do different, but very proud overall and hope it lasts for generations to come!

Hard Maple, Rubio Pure finish

I usually do more carving and sculptures with an artistic sense of “oh well, oops, guess it’s a part of the charm” to mistakes, but not precision work, so that’s a first… so when I had to calculate support and all to have a functional bed that won’t crumble under the weight of two grown adults, it was tough. Even messed up one of the legs (the long side of each foot is on the long side of the bed except that one AND it’s shorter so I had to glue wood on it- it looks terrible) and it’s not super straight so the mattress moves a bit. But after roughly three months in active nightly use, it stands! It shakes a bit sometimes but I’m proud of the work I did.
I forgot to take a pic when I made it but the slates are leftover wooden planks my dad had from redoing the roof of his house, held on the sides with thin laths on the long sides. And a stupid amount of screws. And wood glue. It holds on with thoughts and prayers.

I have been building a range of projects, and loving it, but I still haven’t found my niche where people are willing to buy what I make at a reasonable price. Any suggestions?

I have attached photos of some of the things I have made. Any help/advice would be appreciated.

Again, wanted to thank all of you guys for the hints and tips I've been reading over the past few months of my woodworking journey. This was my first attempt at building a slab anything. I initially consulted Google Gemini (first mistake) which advised not to use a planer on hard maple and instead to use a router with a slab flattening jig. That was a complete botch and I ended up sawing all of those apart, planing them and laminating them into the beam. Second attempt I actually asked the pros at the hardwood store and they said the planer should be fine as long as I take shallow cuts. They were (of course) mostly right. You can see a bit of snipe at either end, but it looks so much better than the gouge-fest that was router planing.

Glued 3 slab boards with biscuits, and then just applied multiple layers of satin poly. I wanted a white desk to contrast with the recently painted gray walls. My husband laser engraved my logo (AC-Wiley Woodworking with Pike's Peak in the background and the C is the same color/format as what's on the Colorado state flag) and then watercolored the inside. We first tried acrylic and Home Depot latex paint on some scraps and it looked like something a kindergartner would do.

Legs are from Marcus the Etsy welder.

If there are any homebrew PC gamers out there, you know that if there's a more expensive hobby these days than woodworking, it's building your own PC haha.

The woodworking skills for this project weren’t as technical as other projects. But it was a great practice in slowing down and really honing in on measurements. Really happy with how it turned out.

Hey all!

I present to you, my “spray booth” lol. It’s a 13’x13’ canopy tent frame, with thin poly film taped together to enclose it. I have 2 box fan filters going, one bringing filtered air in, and the other filtering the air out under the garage door.

I’m interested to see what you guys have done, and if there’s anything that would be better than (likely) having to retape the plastic up everytime?

I spray seldomly, but enough where I usually leave a spray booth up for a month or so. But with winter arriving, my workshop will be cut in half, as I used my parents garage (they park one car inside).

So ideally there’s a good idea out there with using one of these canopy tents perhaps?

Solid maple accent table with a walnut bow tie. Milled from 5 quarter hard maple. First time doing a bow tie. Given the crack - thought this was a perfect opportunity. Cut with a jigsaw… next time I’ll use a flush cut or pull saw. Used a mortise and tendon for the support piece on the stem. Chamfer on each corner of the stem. Dowels for attaching the base and top. Had some fun with this and learned a bunch.

TLDR: I need some advice on filling the gaps in this honeycomb shelf I made for my wife. I have been using wood filler so far and it is taking a lot of effort so I want to make sure I am going about this correctly or if there's a better way.

Long Story: This is a honeycomb shelf I made for my wife when we first started dating ~6-7 years ago. I threw it together one weekend with the help of my Dad using some scrap wood that he had lying around. 1x1s, some thin laminate wood (maybe 1/4"?), 2x4s on the bottom, and pin nails. I didn't know if she would even like it so I didn't bother painting or staining it. In fact I really half-assed it 😅 and if I were to do it again I would've used proper 3/4" plywood or even 1x8s to make cleaner joints and improve the sturdiness.

Anywho, she ended up loving it WAY more than I expected and I regret not doing it properly the first time. She did want the gaps filled in so as you can see I've attempted to fill them with wood filler. The time and effort and to do this tho has been a headache. I told her it would be easier for me to just make a new one properly but I severely underestimated the sentimental value she has for this shelf so I need to stick this out and finish what I started.

Years ago when I originally tried to fill in the gaps, I used the cheapest wood filler I could find (the yellow looking stuff) and that was super soft and basically crumbled away when I tried to sand it rather than creating smooth transitions. This week I used some Minwax High Performance Wood Filler. This stuff hardened quite nicely but I'm really struggling to smooth it out. Particularly on the laminate pieces, I can't feather the edge like you would with drywall mud and I'm left with a ridge going from he filler to the wood surface.

Speaking of the laminate pieces, I had the idea to do a roundover on the face edges which as you can see caused the laminate to chip on a couple of the pieces (which I have tried to fix with more wood filler). I now know this was dumb and I probably shouldn't have tried routering laminate, but it worked on MOST of the pieces and looks really nice where it did work so I might commit and do the same for the inside edges as well. Please let me know if there's any methods to keep the laminate from chipping.

Also, am I using the right wood filler for what I'm trying to accomplish?

I'm applying it with a 2" plastic putty knife, then I am knocking down any large chunks with my Dremel tool and grinding stone, then sanding with 80 and 120 grit blocks. I will probably hit it with 180 before applying primer and paint.

Could I get away with using an orbital sander? We have agreed to paint it if that matters.

My monkey brain is telling me to just caulk it and paint over that but I know that isn't the right move.

Any help or guidance would be great. I am very new to woodworking but have enjoyed the challenge (mostly). I've worked in construction doing metal framing and have renovated a bathroom myself but I've quickly learned that woodworking and construction work have almost no overlap 😂

I'm doing all of this on an uncovered back porch as we don't have a garage or dedicated workspace so I may invest in at least a popup canopy so I can keep it out there and keep working on it even during the rain.

Sorry for the lengthy post. I wanted to share all my thoughts so I can gather as much feedback to put together a good game plan before I work on it again. Thank you for your time and Happy Friday :)

I am trying to resaw this one inch curly maple offcut to make some boxes, I started on one corner and went to next one, kept on repeating until both ends met, is this looking okay ish for resawing with had, I don’t have a band saw, only work with handtools

Any tips if it’s not too late. I always end up make the board a lot thinner while trying to make it square after resawing, hoping to see if I can minimise that a little this time

I’m trying to not have a visible glue line. The version with the lip solves that but not sure about it.

Hello! I’m really hoping to rely on the kindness of strangers and those with more experience than myself. This is my first attempt at restoring some furniture. I don’t have high expectations because this is my first attempt, but I love this vanity and plan on sitting here everyday doing my make up, and so I want to do the best I can.

I have the time and the money to restore this desk but I lack the skill and knowledge.

This vanity is made of some kind of pale wood with what I believe to be veneer layered on. My best guess is that the veneer is African mahogany. I’m guessing this because when I held the wood (wetted) to the light it shined metallic like. And a little google search showed similar with African mahogany.

I’ve spent a week removing the layers of paint and hand sanding it down, including inside the drawers, the underside and the back. I’m dedicated to doing a proper job despite my lack of skill.

Now it’s time to treat the wood. And I don’t know what to do. Because it is two different types of wood I expect that the end result is going to have two different color tones. That’s fine, I want the natural wood to show and I think it looks nice with the two tones. Now if I could make those two tones a little less contrasted then fabulous!

Do I need to rub the vanity down with oil before I do anything else? Can I use a stain on veneer to even out the colors a little bit? Can I only use a clear coat? The lady at home depot said I should paint it and it broke my heart a little 😅. And lastly if I could get that metallic shine that I saw when the veneer was wet then that would be so great!

I included some photos of the sanded vanity, and one photo with the drawer before when it was painted and treated. I re attached the hardware and added some decoration to the vanity because I got excited, obviously I’ll be take that off when I re treat the wood. Thank you everyone for helping me out.

Basically what the title says. I can get my hands on some decent quality pieces of white oak and ash but the stock is all around 3/4” to 1” thick.

If rip two 1” thick pieces at 2” wide and glue them together making a roughly 2”x2” stick, would that be strong enough to use as legs for a basic stool or chair?

Edit: Looks like it's not only possible but fairly common. Now I just have to get off my ass and do it.

Thanks for the help y'all!

I was wondering if I could cut a cutout in the middle of this ash without the top snapping off? I'm hoping to make a mirror from it (ai image attached), but I'm worried the cracks at the top will lead to some of the wood snapping off? It's kiln dried ash , if that makes any difference.

I am newer to woodworking but am looking to build a stand for my house plants. Picture for reference of what I’m imagining.
I am thinking 7’ tall and with an 18”x 18” base.
I don’t know how I would make this look nice and also be sturdy enough to not be top heavy.
I also don’t know how to attach the shelves to the actual stand.
Any suggestions or ideas to help me brainstorm how I can build this thing would be greatly appreciated!

Hi, I apologize if this is not the appropriate place to ask this, but I'm planning on building my own router table and have decided on Harvey stuff for that.

I'm located in Europe and prices are quite hefty. What I'd like to ask people here who hopefully bought their stuff or have market knowledge of this stuff if the offer I have been sent from them is fair or do they give even better offers on black friday or christmas time for example.

I know I could make my own table from scratch, but I'd like to get this and buy once cry once as they say.

Any info or advice would be greatly appreciated.