Home-made furniture for home and garden
Not so long ago, home-made furniture was in almost every home. With the disappearance of the deficit, interest in the products of craftsmen-furniture makers fell significantly, but in recent years it has revived. Moreover, home-made wood furniture with their own hands has become quite a popular hobby, which also brings tangible benefits, and also serves as the pride of the owner of the house.
Joiner or cabinetmaker?
DIY dining room furniture
Home-made furniture in the dining room
Representatives of these two professions were involved in furniture production. Joiners were entrusted with the production of simple and rough furniture: for example, stools, chairs without upholstery, benches and other furnishings with ordinary trim. Exquisite furniture, including upholstered furniture, was made by cabinetmakers. In other words, the difference between these crafts was the complexity of the work performed, and it was very significant.
If you decide to make homemade wood furniture with your own hands, you should honestly answer yourself: who are you – a carpenter or cabinet maker? However, with any answer, we still recommend starting with something simpler. Let it be a garden table or bench. Such furnishings are easy to manufacture. They will help you restore your skills in working with tools and forgive possible flaws. After such an experience, it will be much easier for you to start making more elegant furniture, which will not be embarrassing to bring into the house.
Where to start: tools
Any business should be taken, well and comprehensively prepared. DIY homemade wood furniture will require a solid set of tools. Depending on the complexity of future products, it should include:
longitudinal and transverse hacksaw (or bow saw);
a planer, including for processing ends;
jointer;
a rotor or drill for drilling holes;
chisels of different widths for making rectangular holes and recesses;
tools and accessories for grinding wood;
falsgebel, zenzubel, humpback, tongue and other special types of planers for processing curved surfaces and grooves, sampling quarters, etc.
A complete set of tools for working on wood is very expensive, so we recommend their gradual purchase as the need arises. First of all, this applies to specialized tools.
Where to start: materials
When you have the necessary tools, it’s time to buy materials so that you can already make home-made wood furniture with them yourself. Here you are not limited in anything, since almost any kind of wood is suitable for its manufacture. In addition, it combines perfectly with metal, glass and other materials, which further expands your capabilities. In practice, for the manufacture of home-made furniture most often used:
conifers – pine, cedar, larch;
soft deciduous varieties – linden, alder, aspen, poplar;
hard deciduous varieties – oak, birch, beech, maple, fruit trees.
Since cubic meters of lumber are not needed to make home-made furniture, everything you need is easy to find in building supermarkets. Illiquid assets are also suitable for this. The main thing is that the wood is dry, without a cross-layer and large knots. For products or parts designed for heavy loads, a hardwood should be used. For example, a folding children’s chair, kitchen table or garden furniture is best made from oak or larch.
In addition to conditioned lumber, do-it-yourself wood is often used for making home-made wood furniture with your own hands – stumps, poles and even firewood. Do not refuse plywood, the remnants of old furniture and other improvised materials. A creative approach and accurate work will allow you to decorate your home interior with very original pieces of furniture. Look at the photo of such furniture – and you will see how attractive a garden bench made of poles, an armchair from a stump, a table made of round (saw cuts), a chest of drawers with a facade made of slabs can be.
Home-made furniture: a choice of options
The Internet is the best source for finding ideas in making home-made furniture. Here you will find a wide variety of options for stools and kitchen tables, shelves and chairs, armchairs and beds, cabinets and shelving. In our opinion, it is not worth reinventing the wheel in search of overly original solutions, since the furniture should be not only beautiful, but also practical. To achieve an unusual look, it is enough to work on the finish: for example, perform manual threading on the front parts.
Deliberately rough furniture will look very attractive when the frame elements are not hidden under the facade parts and finishes, while preserving irregular lines in the products. Such furnishings literally take on a fabulous look, but are very difficult to manufacture and will require your impeccable taste and sense of proportion.
