Category Archives: DIY Furniture

On this section, we show you all our DIY Furniture Projects! From a repurposed home office desk to a modern coffee table and more. Best of all, they are all easy to build, very low-cost and look great!

Building a DIY Porch Swing Using Pallet Wood

The pallet used to build the porch swing

Building a DIY porch swing was something Carla asked me to do since the day (or soon after!) we moved to this house. But, we finished the garage, painted almost the whole house, built an office desk, finished part of the basement, remodeled our master closet, and completed many other projects, some of which are not even in the blog, and the swing just kept getting pushed back all the time.

One day, I just felt like using, at least, one of the few pallets we have sitting outside with the intention of completing some projects. It made sense to do something outside the house and finally build the swing after over four years of waiting.

When I told her what I was going to do, she was all smiles, coming up with color ideas and even said she was making a cushion for it! (Don’t miss it on Step 7!) Continue reading →

Building DIY Floating Bookshelves for Our Kid’s Bedroom

The wood we used for the DIY floating Bookshelves

Organization takes priority in our house! When we notice something that needs organizing, it immediately goes to the top of our to-do list.

A good example was the books in our kid’s room. He loves reading and has been getting a lot of books. At first, the books were organized on top of his dresser, however, as he kept getting more and more, the top of the dresser was no longer the right place for them, it was starting to look a bit disorganized. It was also getting harder for him to find the books he wanted to read, and even harder to keep them organized after taking a few of them in and out of the stack.

As a result, we decided to build some DIY floating bookshelves for him.

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Decorating the Foyer with a DIY Floating Shelf

The wood used to build the shelf

First impressions… We all kind of want to make a great first impression. Not that I would care a lot about everyone’s opinion about me, but especially in situations when you like someone, it’s nice to feel you have left a good impression.

Translating that to house décor, we have been intentional when coming up with ideas, and taking care of details, to make our home an inviting and beautiful place to be.

That is the reason why it was irritating me that the very first impression in our house (our foyer) was basically nothing. We had put zero work into it, except for painting the walls, and it was definitely in our to-do list to take care of that. Continue reading →

How to Build a Fun Bunk Bed For Kids

The lumber we used to build the bed’s frame

Growing up, I always wanted one of those fun bedroom sets pictured in magazines. At five, my mom gave me the chance to choose one. When we made it to the store, I fell in love with one they had in the showroom (similar to the ones in the magazines, and not the one she wanted to get me).

It had so many pieces that there was no way it was going to fit in my small bedroom. I ended up getting just the bed and one other piece, a modular desk, and shelving unit (that was back in the late 80s before modular furniture got very popular). Although I was happy with the bedroom set, it was not as fun without the other pieces I could not get.

Looking for ideas for our kid’s bedroom brought back lots of memories, I knew I had to build a fun bed for him! After a bit of research (and finishing his play table and dresser), we decided to build him a fun bunk bed, similar to this one.

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How to Refinish an Old Wood Dresser with White Paint

The old dresser when we brought it home

As you read in our previous post, we became the foster parents of a very energetic four-year-old boy almost overnight. We had to make some very quick changes to our house to make it more kid-friendly.

We had already started building the wooden play table and chair set for him to play before he got home. However, we also needed a dresser to organize his clothes and a bed for him to sleep.

So, as soon as we got him, we had to supercharge our furniture factory (our garage). At the same time, having him with us means that we cannot spend as much time working on projects as we used to. Everything takes a lot longer now.

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How to Build a Wooden Play Table and Chair Set for Kids

The pallet wood we used to build the play table set

Months ago, they hosted what they call “Orphan Care Weekend” at our church. They had different activities and speakers trying to raise awareness of the needs of orphans and foster children in our community. As you may expect, one of the very important topics they talked about was the unfortunate, but desperate need of adoptive and foster parents for kids of all ages (0 to 18), and the great difference they are able to make in the children lives.

Moved by everything we learned that weekend, late last year, Carla and I started the process to get certified as foster parents.

Fast forward to April 2018, we got our certification and a kid at home. An energetic 4-year old boy (we got a call the same day our certification was approved, that’s how desperate they are for foster families).

Without kids, our house was absolutely not kid-friendly. We had to start working on changing this. So, after looking for different ideas, we decided that building a wooden play table was definitely a must for us!

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How We Built Our Own Wooden Coffee Table

The wood we used to build our DIY coffee table

The wood we used to build our own coffee table

I have always had a particular taste. As a child, my mom and dad would tell me that I was going to have to make my own clothes & shoes, because it was really hard to find stuff that I actually liked (it’s funny now, but it wasn’t back then). Going shopping was a frustrating experience!

Trying to find the perfect coffee table for our living room brought these childhood memories back to my mind. Nothing was what we wanted… Or it was, but with a price way higher than we wanted to pay.

One day, we came across a Crate & Barrel bench online. We loved the concept. It is simple, yet modern and the legs definitely stood out… Could we pull this off? We were definitely going to give it a try.

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Reupholstering Dining Room Chairs

How much fabric do I need to reupholster a chair

A chair as they looked before we started the project

Before we moved to our new house, we decided to replace most of our old furniture. As a result, the dining room set was one of those things we were missing.

After browsing a little (online and in the stores), we decided we didn’t want to pay full price for one, so we started our hunt for a used one. A while later, we found one that was in perfect condition, for a third of what it would cost to buy it new in the store. It was not necessarily our favorite, but we saw the potential of improving it with a little bit of love.

We brought it home, put it in its place and… yes, it needed the love. Our flooring is a dark brown hardwood, the dining room set has a very similar warm dark tobacco finish and leather looking brown seat coverings. We ended up with what I called “The Brown Corner”. This said, something had to be done to bring life to it… and the first thing we thought of was reupholstering the seat coverings.

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Turning a Bedroom Into An Office Part 3: Building a Wood Desktop

The lumber we used to build our desktop

As you may know by now, this whole “turning a bedroom into an office” project idea started when we decided to resolve the lack of desk space in what was then our home “office”.

We started painting the room. Then we went ahead and used an old desk from craigslist to build our new desk. And finally, we moved on to the last part of the project, building a wood desktop.

This was not your typical desktop, though, but one that is long enough for a double desk, so both of us can work at the same time. It is 11 ft. and 6 inches long to be exact, and on this post, we show you how we did it.

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Turning a Bedroom Into An Office Part 2: Building a DIY Home Office Desk

The old desk we bought to built our double home office desk

As you learned in our previous post, the main reason why we decided to move forward with this home office project was the need of additional desk space for both of us to work at the same time. While the walls color had nothing to do with the lack of desk space, it was an important part for us. It made sense to take care of them before moving on with the rest of the project.

So, right after putting a fresh coat of paint on the walls and deciding the new office’s layout, we started looking for desk ideas. We came across many different options, but at the end of the day, for several reasons, we decided to try something similar to what we found at Young House Love.

Obviously, we like what they did. When possible, we like recycling and reusing stuff. It seemed like a relatively easy and inexpensive project for us to do, and most importantly, we had most of the supplies we needed to work on it.

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