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How to Build a Sideboard

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We built a sideboard for our Dining Room for less than $200 and I’m going to share how we did it here!

I’ll be honest, we originally didn’t set out to build a sideboard from scratch. Even though we’ve done a ton of construction work at this point and even built furniture before (see our large farmhouse dining table and console table and round game table), for whatever reason a sideboard just seemed soooo much more complicated to me so we didn’t really even consider making one at first. But I kept coming back to this Restoration Hardware sideboard and I just loved the style, but it didn’t come in the width we needed so I took a closer look at it and was like hey… I bet we could build something like that. And so we did.

Our sideboard’s depth is just under 12″ deep which is very shallow by traditional sideboard standards and it’s almost half the depth of the RH piece we were inspired by (whose depth is almost 20″). In our dining room, we wanted to keep our furniture minimal so a shallow depth was key but we made ours longer as we had a lot of width to work with and wanted to make this a statement piece. I’ve also never seen the RH sideboard in person and I couldn’t find pic of the inside so ours is just ‘inspired’ by it.

So it’s actually a simple piece of furniture when you break it down: It’s a 4-sided frame (mitered corners optional) with a middle support piece, 4 doors, one shelf, a backer panel, and a floor board. That’s it!

For the frame, we used the same thick rough sawn solid pine boards that we recently used for all the open shelving we built in our basement so they’re an actual true 2″ thickness (not 1 1/2″) by 12″ widths in 8′ lengths. For the doors and shelving inside, we used the same type of wood boards but in 1″ thickness (true measurement) instead of 2″. For the floor and backer panels, we used 1/2″ MDF sheets.

So here’s how to build it. Bear in mind that you don’t have to fasten it all together the same way we did. We used what we had on hand but other ways of fastening pieces would also be fine.

Building materials:

  • 2 x 2x12x8 rough sawn boards (true dimensions, not like framing lumber)
  • 1 x 2x12x10 rough sawn boards (true dimensions, not like framing lumber) *
  • 4 x 1x12x8 rough sawn boards (3 for the doors, 1 for shelf)
  • 1 x 1/2x4x8 sheet of MDF
  • 10 x small L-brackets (Home Depot) + screws
  • 8 x door hinges (we used these: Amazon)
  • Some longer screws (about 1 3/4″ – 2″)
  • Some shorter screws (about 1 1/4″)

*for this piece you actually only need 105 inches so if you can source a piece that’s 9′ that would work.

Finishing materials:

Tools:

Plans:

Instructions: Creating the frame

  1. Cut your 2x12x8 to length for your frame. You will need:
    – 2 pieces at the length you want (we did 93″), with back-cut mitered edges
    – 2 pieces at the height you want (we did 36″), with back-cut mitered edges
    – 1 middle support piece at the height of the middle of your frame (ours was 32″). This one is shorter because it goes in between the top and bottom boards.
  2. Dry-fit all your frame pieces to make sure they all fit.
  3. Attach your frame pieces together using wood glue in the joints and L-brackets on the inside.
  4. Attach the middle support piece in the exact middle of your frame using L-brackets at the top, but you can use a really long screw to screw up from the bottom of the unit to secure the base since that won’t show.

Instructions: Creating the doors

  1. This involves some math, but I’ll tell you what you need to calculate. Each door is made up of 2 boards with 2 bar-support pieces holding them together in the back. The idea is that we need to create 2 doors on Side A and 2 doors on Side B. Each set of doors spaced about ~ 1/8″ away from the frame. In between each set of 2 doors, we’re going to leave a gap of the same width as the support piece (ours was 2″). See my diagram for additional clarity. So, for each side (A and B), you need to calculate:
    – the total width of available space
    – then find the middle and mark it with a pencil
    – then mark 1″ on either side of the middle point to create a 2″ space (or however big you want your gap to be) directly in the middle of each side and mark your frame with a pencil
    – then find the width of your doors: measure the distance from your 2″ gap-mark to the frame, deduct ~ 1/8″ (clearance for your door) and that’s your full door width. Then divide that by 2 to find the width of the two planks that make up your door. Write this down.
    – then find the height of your doors: measure the distance between the top and bottom frame, deduct 1/4″ (1/8″ clearance x 2), and that’s your door height. Write this down. Note: if your wood is warped, the heights may vary along the length of the frame. Each of our door heights varied by about 1/8″ to 1/16″ but you can’t tell in the end because we fit them well to the space and your eye accepts it as straight.
  2. Cut and rip your 1x12x8 planks to size for your doors. We found it was easier to first use the miter saw (Home Depot | Amazon) to cut the full boards into the heights of the doors (marking them on the sides 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 so we could identify each door), then use the table saw (Home Depot | Amazon) rip them down to the widths you need.
  3. Cut 8 backer support pieces out of any straight material you may have (you can even use cutoffs from the boards you just ripped down. Make them roughly 1.5″ wide x 3/4″ thick x 12″ long.
  4. Once you have all your door panels + support pieces, lay them face down on a perfectly flat surface, wood glue the seams between them, then wood glue the support pieces to the back at approximately 1/3 and 2/3 along the planksand let them dry overnight. The next day, we added 4 screws/door to secure them together. The reason we didn’t screw them from the start is that using rough sawn lumber means the wood has isn’t always perfectly straight and we wanted to let them dry flat without the screws pulling them in any direction. This resulted in very flat door panels.

Instructions: Final cuts

Now that your frame is complete, it’s time to cut your final misc pieces so that you can stain/paint them along with everything else. You will need to make the following:

  1. Cut two backer panels from 1/2″ MDF for Side A and Side B.
  2. Cut one floor panel from 1/2″ MDF (optional). Dimensions: 2″ shorter than full length, 1″ less wide than full width. We used scrap MDF so ours is actually in two pieces but it doesn’t matter.
  3. Cut two 4″ strips from the 1×12 boards (for the strips that go behind the doors). The length should be the same as the doors.
  4. Cut four 1″ strips from the 1×12 boards for supports under the shelves (ours were about 7″).
  5. Cut two shelves out of your 1×12 boards for Side A and Side B at whatever the inside dimensions of your cabinet are. We actually cut this piece last after we’d fully assembled the sideboard for more accurate measurements, but you can also do it now.
  6. The following are optional depending on your hinges but we needed them:
    – We needed four 2.5″ strips of the 1×12 board (same height as the doors) to attach the hinges to inside the frame since we chose to recess our doors by a 1/2″.
    – We needed two 1″ strips of the 1×12 board to go behind the doors to prevent them from closing too far. Calculated by taking depth of the board behind the door strip, minus 1/2″ for the backer panel. Ours were 8.5″ long.

Instruction: Sanding & Staining

  1. Use an orbital sander (Home Depot | Amazon) + 150 grit sanding pads to smooth out your entire frame and doors and miscellaneous bits to your desired smoothness. Since we were using rough sawn lumber, I wanted to leave the saw marks visible so I just sanded down the roughness lightly but kept all the indentations and markings in the wood for a more rustic look. This is personal preference. Sand down all surfaces (even the inside).
  2. Apply pre-stain conditional (Amazon | Home Depot) to all surfaces that will be stained. This is an essential step. Every time I forget to use this, I regret it. I don’t know how it works but it just makes the stain absorb so much better. Apply using either a rag or brush. Allow it to dry for about 15 mins (or as per manufacturer’s instructions).
  3. Apply stain (Amazon | Home Depot) using a combination of a brush and rag. I applied a fairly thick coat and really rubbed it in with the rag. Allow it to sink in for however long it takes you to stain everything. Then go over everything in the same order you stained it in with a clean rag and wipe away any excess stain. Allow it to dry for as long as the manufacturer advises.
  4. Apply a matte top coat (Amazon | Home Depot) with a paint brush using even clean lines. I did everywhere with one coat (since my poly was triple thick) but I would have done multiple coats if I was just using normal poly. Then I did a second coat on the top surface which is the area that will see the most traffic.
  5. I also separately painted the inside of both MDF backer panels black (I used leftover BM Black Panther from our theater room and sofa pit projects). This was just an optional design preference.

Instructions: Assembling the Sideboard

*Please see the plans above for location references for this part.

  1. Now that we had created our frame, our doors, and all our pieces, we moved our sideboard close to the location where we’d finally display it and did all the final work on site since it’s quite heavy and hard to move once completed.
  2. Install the doors: We set our doors 1/2 back from the frame and installed two strips behind the doors attached to the frame to attached the hinges to. We used a concealed hinge jig (Home Depot | Amazon) to make holes for the hinges then screw them into place.
  3. Fasten the 4″ strip that goes behind the doors to the outer 2 doors using wood glue & screws.
  4. Fasten the strips to the bottom and top of the frame that go behind the doors to stop them from closing in too far.
  5. Fasten the shelf supports behind the hinge strip at whatever height you want your shelf.
  6. Dry-fit your shelf then cut out a section of it with a jig saw (Home Depot | Amazon) so the strip behind the door can fully close.
  7. Attach the shelf to the supports with screws.
  8. Attach the backer panels and screw them into the various support pieces (you should be able to do one screw into the top and bottom (at the strips behind the doors), and left/right/middle along the shelf, but no screws in the 4 corners cuz there’s nothing to screw into there.
  9. Flip the sideboard onto its side and attach the floor panel flush to the back (should be 1″ set back from the front and two sides). Screw it directly into the bottom of the frame. Optional: add furniture pads.

If you don’t feel like doing all this work, I’ve also found some similar sideboards that are less expensive than the original RH piece we were inspired by here: Crate & Barrel | Crate & Barrel | West Elm | McGee & Co.

Below are some finished pictures of our sideboard:

Sources: circular vase| wood links | light fixture
Tutorials: Canvas Art Tutorial | Dining Table Tutorial

 
For more sources from our Dining Room, click here.
For more sources from our Kitchen, click here.
For more of our DIY tutorials, click here.
To explore the other rooms in our house, click here.

How to Make a Wood Bead Garland | Decor DIY

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Wood bead garlands with jute tassels are such a fantastic piece of accent decor and they’re very easy to make so I’m going to show you how I make mine in this tutorial.

If you’re not into DIY, here are a few ready-made options: Amazon | McGee & Co | Crate & Barrel.

If you just need one garland, it might just be worth it to buy one ready-made and save yourself the time and trouble of making them. But I wanted several lengths of them for various uses over the holidays, so I decided I might as well learn how to make them and it was actually a very relaxing and fun DIY project!

MATERIALS & TOOLS:

  • Wood beads (I used 1″ raw wood beads): Amazon (100 pack) | Amazon (150 pack)
  • Jute twine: Amazon
  • Scissors
  • Piece of cardboard around 6″x3″

INSTRUCTIONS:

For the instructions, I’m going to use pictures rather than words to explain how to make them because I just think that it’ll be easier to follow and in this case visual instructions may be more clear. Here goes…

Again, if you prefer not to DIY, here are some ready-made wood bead garlands: Amazon | McGee & Co | Crate & Barrel.

For more of our DIY Tutorials, click here.
For sources from our dining room (top pics), click here.
To follow us on Instagram, click here.

How to Make Clay Links | Decor DIY

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I made these easy decor links out of natural, air-drying clay and they were not only an easy DIY but also such a fun item to add to any styling moment so I thought I’d share how I made mine here.

The only material you need is natural clay: Amazon | Amazon | Michaels. I linked a few different options so you can shop the best price. 10lbs might seem like a lot, but I went through the whole box I bought.

Here are some ready-made examples of chain links and I have a longer list at the bottom of this post: Bloomist (pale wood) | Bloomist (dark wood) | Bloomist (extra large) | CB2 (marble)| McGee & Co (stone)

There are no specific rules to this DIY and these are extremely general instructions. I made 4 link sets with 4 different shapes and sizes of links so this is just an overview on to how to make them. You can use as much or as little clay as you’d like and you can make your rings as thick or thin as your heart desires.

Instructions:

  1. Start with a chunk of clay. I cut a slab about an inch thick off my whole block of clay, then divided that up into sticks. You can just use any kitchen knife to cut the clay.
  2. Roll out two pieces of clay to start (same rolling technique as play dough) until it’s the thickness of link you like. Since I made 4 link chains in total, mine ranged from about 1/2″ to 1 1/2″ of thickness.
  3. To interlock the chain links, lay them over each other crosswise, then close up the links using a little water to help seal the join between the clay ends.
  4. Continue adding links to your chain, making sure you interlock them as you go. You can make as many or as few links as you want – I think the most I did in one chain was 8 links, and the fewest was 2 (much thicker).
  5. This is optional but you can use a finger that has been dipped in water to gently smooth over any imperfections in the links. Don’t use too much water, but just a little allows you to ‘erase’ lines or bumps.
  6. Allow to air-dry on the counter for several days. I recommend placing small pieces of parchment paper in the places where two pieces of clay are resting against each other so that they don’t fuse together as they dry. They’ll take about 4-8 days to fully dry depending on the thickness of the links.
  7. Once they’re dry, you can paint them any color you want, or leave them natural. So far, I’ve left all of mine their natural color but that’s just personal preference – you can do whatever looks best to you.

Here are ready-made links if you love this look but don’t feel up to making them:

  • Pale wood chain: Bloomist (regular – 5 links)
  • Pale wood chain: Bloomist (large – 3 links)
  • Pale wood chain: Bloomist (large – 5 links)
  • Dark wood chain: Bloomist (regular – 5 links)
  • Dark wood chain: Bloomist (large – 3 links)
  • Dark wood chain: Bloomist (large – 5 links)
  • White marble chain: Bloomist (regular – 3 links)
  • White marble chain: Bloomist (regular – 5 links)
  • White marble chain: Bloomist (large – 3 links)
  • Dark marble chain: Bloomist (regular – 3 links)
  • Marble chain: CB2 (3 links – squared)
  • Marble chain: CB2 (7 links – rounded)
  • Dark soapstone chain: McGee & Co (3 links – rounded)
  • Natural wood chain: McGee & Co (6 links – organic)

Other sources from the pics:

For more of our DIY Tutorials, click here.
To follow us on Instagram, click here.

How to Texture Bowls & Vases | Decor DIY

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An easy way to upcycle old vases and bowls that have a good shape but whose color/pattern perhaps no longer fits in with your style is to simply add texture to them and then repaint them in a new color. This is so unbelievably easy that it almost seems weird to dedicate a whole tutorial to it but here you go:

OPTION 1: HEAVY TEXTURE

Materials:

  • Joint compound: Home Depot
  • Vase/bowl. If you don’t have any old ones, try finding options that are maybe on sale. Here are some similar to what I used: Amazon | Amazon | Target | Target | Crate & Barrel | West Elm
  • Paint (any kind will do, I used BM Simply White in matte that was leftover from our house)

Instructions:

  1. Start with any old vase/bowl. For the example in this tutorial, I used an old glass salad bowl I no longer used but that had a fun shape.
  2. Smear it with joint compound either using your gloved hand, or even an old paint brush. You can make any kind of texture you like. In this example, I just used my fingers to create a natural texture around the bowl, but you can do anything you like and use as much or as little mud as you want.
  3. Dry it overnight.
  4. Paint any color your heart desires.

Progress pics are below, final result is pictured above.

OPTION 2: LIGHT TEXTURE

As an alternative to using joint compound, you can also do a similar technique using baking soda mixed with house paint to create a lighter texture that closely resembles ceramic or terra cotta texture. Most of the vases I label as “DIY” in my sources are done with like this.

To do this, just mix a little house paint with a large scoop of baking soda until it turns to a thickness you’re happy with. I like mine to be quite thick so I do approximately 3 part paint to 1 part baking soda.

Then paint it onto the vase/bowl with a paint brush. If you want even more texture, a trick is to wait until the paint you’ve applied is mostly dry, then run a dry brush over it to create even more texture.

The example I’ve shown in these pics is from the vase in our Home Theater Room. If you’re wondering why the color changes, I had originally painted it gray then changed my mind and switched to white.

Other sources:

For more sources from our Office Room, click here.
For more sources from our Home Theater Room, click here.
For more of our DIY Tutorials, click here.
To follow us on Instagram, click here.

How to Make Paper Mache Bowls | Decor DIY

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I made several paper mache bowls for free using recycled paper waste from our home so I’m going to share the process here because they’re easy to make and they’re a great way to re-use paper waste.

For reference, you can find a few ready-made examples of various beautiful paper mache bowls at both McGee & Co (natural look) and Bloomist (painted bowls). I just love how these look styled on shelving!

Now, I made my paper mache completely from scratch – meaning that I created my own paper pulp because I wanted to recycle our home’s paper waste. However, this does take longer, so there are also “instant paper mache mix” options you can buy if you prefer like these: Michaels and Amazon.

However, in this tutorial, I’m sharing the homemade “from scratch” version.

Materials list (for paper mache pulp):

  • Shredded paper
  • Flour (any kind will do)
  • Salt (to prevent the mixture from going off)
  • Hot water (to soak the paper)

Tools list:

  • 3 large mixing bowls
  • Immersion blender: Amazon (this is what I used but you can probably use a food processor or stand blender or really anything that can blend stuff for this project)
  • Bowls to shape your paper mache bowls around

Finishing list:

  • Paint (any house or acrylic paint, my preference is matte)
  • Top coat (to seal them at the end, optional): Home Depot

Timeline: due to soaking and drying times, these bowls take several days to make because you have to wait for the paper to soak and for the bowls to dry. While the actual “active” time you’ll spend making them is short, the amount of time before they’re ready to use is long so these are not “instant” DIYs.

The following instructions are for how to make bowls with my homemade paper mache. If you use an instant paper mache mix (Michaels | Amazon) then just follow the instructions on their packaging instead.

Instructions on how to make paper mache pulp/clay:

  1. First you’ll need shredded paper. I just gathered up all the scrap paper in our house and ran it through our paper shredder, but you can also just cut it up finely with scissors. The end goal is just to have very finely cut up paper to make your paper mache pulp. The more finely cut, the better.
  2. Place your shredded paper in a large bowl and fill the bowl with hot water until the water just covers the paper. Don’t add more water than necessary because it’ll make your life harder in later steps.
  3. Soak hot water/paper mixture for several hours, or ideally overnight. The purpose of this step is to break down the paper so the longer you can let it soak, the better.
  4. Blend the paper to a fine pulp with an immersion blender. Take your time and be very thorough, don’t leave any chunks unblended. It helps to stir the mixture now and again to make sure you didn’t miss any paper strips along the bottom of the bowl.
  5. Set up 3 large bowls in a row: first is the bowl with your wet paper pulp, then is a bowl that will be filled with water squeezed out of the pulp, and finally an empty bowl for the now-dry pulp.
  6. Squeeze about 80-90% of the water out of your wet paper pulp by scooping up large handfuls and squeezing gently (like a snowball) until most of the water is gone. You don’t want them to be bone dry. I actually removed too much of the water from mine, and had to add more water back in later. Once you’ve completed this, you should now have a bowl of mostly-dry paper balls.
  7. Break up the little balls of paper so that they’re evenly crumbly.
  8. Now it’s time to turn your paper crumbles into a kind of “paper clay”. Add in about 1/3 the amount of flour as you have paper, as well as a bunch of salt. The approximate ratio is 1 part flour to 3 parts paper pulp, plus enough water to create a clay that is thick enough to mold into shapes, but that it is not sticky at all. I recommend reserving some of your paper crumbles before you begin mixing just in case you accidentally add too much water because then you’ll have a bit more paper left to add in and thicken it. You just have to play around with the ratio of paper:flour:salt:water until it feels right and paper-clay-like. The purpose of the salt is to prevent the mixture from going off so just throw in a bunch (I didn’t measure but several tablespoons). You’ll know you’re done when you can form the pulp into a shape (try a flattened triangle or a heart) and it holds its shape on its own without being sticky or crumbling apart.
  9. Now your paper mache pulp/clay is done. At this point, you can choose to either place your finished pulp mixture in the fridge to use later (I kept some in my fridge for a couple weeks and it stayed fresh), or immediately make your paper mache bowl.

Instructions on how to make a paper mache bowl:

  1. To make your paper mache bowl, you’ll need a bowl to use as a mold/frame. This can be any oven-safe bowl you like the size/shape of. The bowl will not be damaged by this project (but it must be oven-safe) so it’s only temporarily needed until your paper mache has set.
  2. Cover your bowl in saran wrap before starting. This will help you remove the bowl later.
  3. Take small handfuls of the paper mache pulp and press it onto your mold-bowl. Ideally your paper mache bowl would be approximately a 1/4 inch thick (ish). Just keep adding more until your bowl is evenly covered. Make sure to blend the seams too so that everything sticks together.
  4. Now you can add fun texture/dimension to your bowl. I made 5 bowls, each with slightly different designs. You can either use your finger to press indents into the pulp, or add in extra ropes of pulp. Just make sure you properly blend everything together. It’s similar in concept to working with clay or play dough. Ultimately you just have to keep molding it until you’re happy with the shape and everything is blended together.
  5. Next you need to dry the bowls out by placing them in your oven on the “keep warm” setting for basically a whole day (5-9 hours depending on the size and thickness) to dry it out. It’s very important you don’t have the oven any hotter than the “keep warm” setting since there is saran wrap under the paper mache but, at least on my oven, that setting is low enough that it just helps it dry out faster without baking it. — Side note: The reason you can’t just leave it out on the counter to dry is a lesson I learned the very hard way with my first bowls – I left them to dry on my counter for about 5 days but not only were they not drying anywhere near fast enough but they started to smell very sour (maybe I didn’t add enough salt?) so it was pretty gross and I hope you can learn from my mistake and just oven-dry them on keep-warm from the start. — You’ll know they’re dry when you touch them and there’s no squish.
  6. When your bowls are finished drying out, take them out of the oven and let them cool completely.
  7. Remove the “real” bowls that they’re formed around. This is MUCH easier said than done. Be VERY PATIENT because at this point you can break your bowl and all your hard work will go to waste so don’t rush this and accept that it takes a bit of time, a few prayers, and the right balance of gentle force and patience. The bowls WILL break if you’re not careful. I found the best thing was to gently but firmly pull the sides away from the bowl just the tiniest bit (like 1/32″) and rotate doing that around the bowl to loosen them, then pull gently at the cling wrap just a little at a time rotating around the bowl again, and just sloweeeely wiggle it loose. This does take a bit of time.
  8. Once you have freed the bowl, you’ll notice the inside is likely still a little wet in spots. If so, just put it back in your oven on “keep-warm” until it fully dried. This could take anywhere from 1-3 hours.
  9. Now that your bowls are formed, dry, and free, it’s time to finish them. You can either leave them their natural color or paint them. If you’re going to paint them, then pretty much just do whatever you want. I painted some of mine with random house paints I had left over from prior projects and I left others their natural color.
  10. When you’re finished painting them, you have the option of sealing them with a clear top coat. I sealed mine with the same poly that I used on all my woodworking projects. I’m sure this isn’t a “proper” or “official” way to do it but hey it worked!

For sources from our Game Room, click here.
For sources from our Office Room, click here.
For more of our DIY Tutorials, click here.
To follow us on Instagram, click here.

How to Build Cabinet Doors

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We decided to modify our pantry room and change the bottom row of cabinetry from roll-outs to full drawers so I made 6 drawer fronts in one day and thought I’d share the process because it’s seriously so simple and I feel like sometimes this kind of thing seems more complicated than it really is.

I specifically made drawer fronts but this exact same technique could be used to make any size cabinet door or drawer front so it’s more about the method than the specific dimensions.

In my case here, I made a simple 5-piece door with a 1/2″ MDF backer panel and 1/4″ MDF 2″ rails and 3″ stiles to create the cabinet style I wanted, but you can make your rails/stiles any size you prefer.

MATERIALS LIST:

TOOLS LIST:

INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. Create your backer boards by cutting your 1/2″ MDF to size on a table saw. Be sure to leave about a 1/16 to 1/8 gap on each side between the door and the cabinet side.
  2. Create your rails & stiles by cutting your 1/4″ MDF into 2″ (rails) and 3″ (stiles) strips on a table saw. Then cut them to the lengths your need on a miter saw.
  3. Dry fit your rails & stiles over your backer board to ensure a flawless fit.
  4. Glue the backs of your rails & stiles then place them on your backer board. You may need to clamp them down or just place something heavy over them as they dry (but be very careful that they don’t shift under the weight). I actually didn’t use any clamping and I only weighed one of mine down.
  5. Allow them to fully dry for several hours.
  6. Apply wood filler to all surface seams with a putty knife, and also around all 4 exterior edges to blend the seam between the 1/2″ and 1/4″ MDF panels.
  7. Once it’s fully dry, sand all wood filler down until perfectly smooth.
  8. Now your door is done and it’s ready to be painted.

For sources from our pantry room, click here.
For sources from the rest of our home, click here.
For more of our tutorials, click here.

How to Install Floating Open Shelves (Solid Wood)

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We installed floating open shelves over the snack bar in our Home Theater Room in our Basement so we thought we’d share how we did it here! There are many great ways to do floating shelves and each of them have their own advantages. The method we used not only seemed the easiest to us but also using genuinely solid wood planks achieved the thick, chunky, rustic look we were going for very authentically.

We also did these shelves in our Game Room and the little nook in our Basement Hallway.

We use real solid wood boards as our shelves, so they’re not specifically “shelving”, they’re just planks of the right size and shape that we then turn into shelves.

The process for installing floating shelves is simple. You just screw the rod brackets (Amazon) to studs, drill holes for them in the wood, and slide the board onto the rods. But I’ll go into more detail below:

MATERIALS & TOOLS LIST:

1. INSTALL SHELF BRACKETS:

The style of floating shelf bracket we used is this: Amazon. We chose this style because we wanted the brackets to be completely hidden once the shelving was in place to give the “floating” look. When your brackets arrive, we recommend checking them all for straightness. A tiny bit off is ok, but they should be generally all welded straight. We used 3 brackets per shelf and each of our shelves was ~ 6 feet long.

To install them:

  1. Decide where your shelf should go and draw a level line across the space.
  2. Mark the studs and pre-drill holes for your brackets.
  3. Screw them into the studs.

2. PREPARE WOOD BOARDS:

Our shelves are solid wood planks: 2″ thick x 10″ wide (true measurements) x 6′ long.

First, cut them to the length you need. A little tip if your shelving is going between two walls or two cabinets (as ours were) is to leave about 1/16″ of space on either side when calculating your board/shelf length. This ensures that the board doesn’t scrape against anything as you slide it into place.

Next, finish them. We chose rough planks since we were going for a bit of a rustic look. The shelves needed to be easy to clean, but we also wanted to retain their warm natural color tone so we didn’t want to just sand them down to smoothness (which would have lightened them and lost their color). So we finished them in a way that kept their rustic/rough look while making them smooth enough to wipe down.

This is how we finished them:

  1. Apply a clear matte top coat (source: Home Depot | Amazon) to your rough board with a paint brush and allow it to fully dry. Very important that you do NOT sand before applying the top coat!
  2. Once the top coat is dry, lightly sand (by hand, do NOT use an orbital sander) with 150 grit until the immediate roughness is gone. You have to run your hand over it to determine the smoothness.
  3. Repeat applying another layer of top coat, wait for it to dry, then lightly sand it. This was all our boards needed, but depending on how rough yours is, you may need to repeat this several times.
  4. Do this same process to the other side (all sides of the board should be finished in the same way).

The goal with this process is that you’re filling the board’s roughness with the top coat layers and you’re lightly sanding the top coat, not the actually board (or at least, not much of it) to retain its color.

Lastly, drill holes for your brackets. You will need an extra long drill bit (ours: Home Depot) for this. Make sure your drill bit is either the same size as or only slightly bigger than the rod/bracket. Our rods were 1/2″ and we had a 1/2″ drill bit so we just enlarged the hole a bit by moving the drill about a little since the brackets were mostly straight, but not perfectly straight. A 5/8″ drill bit would have been great too, but no bigger than that. We calculated the exact placement of the holes based on the brackets’ locations on our wall (don’t forget to account for the 1/16″ gap between the board + wall if you did one), then we just eyeballed the straightness of the drill bit.

3. INSTALL SHELVES:

Once your brackets are in place and your boards are finished, simply lift the board up to your brackets and slide them onto the rods. If you’ve calculated the placement and drilled the holes correctly, they should just slide into place. A couple notes:

  • It’s helpful to have a rubber mallet on hand if you need to give it an extra push.
  • We used painters tape to cover the two sides of the shelf before we lifted them into place. This just ensured that if it made contact with the cabinets, it wouldn’t cause any damage.
  • The brackets likely have a tiny bit of play back and forth so you can kinda pull them into position if needed – it’s just a tiny fraction of an inch of play but it was enough for us.
  • You can fill the holes with a little bit of construction adhesive before installing the shelving if you feel it’s necessary or if you feel the fit is too loose. We didn’t need to do this (and we liked having the option of easily removing the shelving if needed) but the adhesive is an option to consider.
  • We used 8″ brackets with 10″ boards so our bracket rods span most of the depth of each shelf. If you have a smaller bracket-to-shelf depth ratio, then I definitely recommend using an adhesive so that they don’t slide off if you place something heavier on them.

Other sources:

How to Build a Round Table

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We built a modern rustic 48″ round table for our Basement Game Room out of a dozen 2x4x8s and I’m going to share how we did it here! It was a challenging piece to build but we love how it turned out!

The basic concept of how to build this table is simple but I’ll be honest that we ran into a lot of issues while building it even though, by this point, we’ve had a fair bit of experience building things. If you’ve never built any furniture before, I would not recommend this as a first piece to start with. I’d consider it more of a moderate level of difficulty. It’s neither super easy nor super hard, but my tutorial is going to assume that you generally know how to build stuff and use the tools mentioned if you build this table.

Here are some similar ready-to-order tables for reference:

For our table design, we considered many different styles as shown in my concept sketches in the right pics. For the base, we originally planned to build a single-leg variation of our farmhouse dining table‘s X-based design, but instead we kept coming back to the simplicity of the more minimal base we chose over and decided to do a modern, geometric wood plank design for the table top. You may notice that our tabletop subtly ties in with our guest bedroom accent wall in a different part of our house. I’ve always really loved finding ways to to little tie-ins between rooms without blatantly matching – I just feel it makes the overall house design feel more cohesive.

Our table is 48″ in diameter and 30.5″ high.

MATERIALS LIST:

  • 12 x 2x4x8 lumber (we used cedar) – I recommend getting a few extra just in case
  • Wood screws (2 1/2″ and 3″ lengths)
  • Wood glue: Home Depot | Amazon
  • Matte top coat: Home Depot | Amazon

*Lumber buying tip: carefully select your boards. Check each one for straightness and, if you’re using a wood with color variation, make sure the boards your select have the colors you want on your table.

TOOLS LIST:

TABLE DESIGN:

TABLE TOP BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. To remove the rounded edges on your lumber, use a table saw to rip 1/8″ off both narrow sides. This will give you lumber with nice square edges to work with. This step is optional.
  2. Cut your tabletop planks to size creating whatever pattern you choose (can be totally different than ours), but generally allowing for at least 1″ of extra space on the outside. So in our case, we did a 48″ round table, so my first piece was cut to 48″ exactly and I laid it down in the middle. Then the pieces around it would be progressively less. It helps to make a guide that you can twirl around your boards to make sure the pieces you cut are bigger than your circle.
  3. Use wood glue between the planks and screw them together. Be careful placing your screws so they don’t interfere with your final rounded cut line. First, we attached the individual planks together into 3 sections using pre-drilled holes and countersunk 3″ screws going halfway through each plank. Then we attached those 3 sections to each other with Kreg Jig pocket hole screws. (Note: the wood glue is very important because if you have any warp, the glue can help correct it in combination with the next step listed below so don’t skip the glue and don’t skimp on it!)
  4. Place it under something heavy (we used gym weights) overnight to dry so that it dries straight/flat.

Couple of problems we ran into during this stage and how we fixed them:

  • To prevent warping, you’re supposed to alternate the direction of the grain in boards when you build tables but we were so caught up in choosing our boards based on the coloring of the individual boards (there’s a lot of color variation in the type of wood we used so the undersides of our table boards are often completely different colors than the tops) that we forgot to alternate the direction of the grain in the boards so we as we began screwing the boards together, some of the sections had quite a curve to them. We corrected this with wood glue and weighting the table top down as it dried, but still had to add a steel plate to the underside of one area at the end of the build. Not a big deal, but preventable if you remember to alternate your grain. We should have known better.
  • The steel plate we added was specifically to the underside of the tabletop half that’s all straight boards – the plate is ~ 1″x8″. I have a feeling that even if we’d done everything perfectly, we would still have needed the steel plate for stability but there’s no way for me to know for sure.
  • Even though our wood pieces dry-fit perfectly, they didn’t always fit together as perfectly once we started screwing them together so be prepared to make adjustments as you go. For this reason, it’s helpful to have a table saw as we ended up using it to shave off bits to make the pieces fit better.

TABLE TOP CUTTING INSTRUCTIONS:

Once your table top is fully assembled and the glue has dried, it’s time to cut out the round circle. Ultimately we found that the best way to do this was to draw a perfect circle using a homemade compass and freehanding the cut with a jig saw. I think a router is a better tool to cut the circle but we don’t have one and renting one just seemed like a lot of trouble and we had a jig saw so we used it.

First, we tried to build a jig for the jig saw and the jig actually worked really well in theory. It held the jig saw perfectly in place and it moved in a perfect circle. Unfortunately it didn’t work for us though because I guess the wood we used was too thick for the jig saw blade to handle in a jig because the blade just kept bending out of the way and creating an angled cut instead of a straight cut. So in the end, we just freehanded the cut and that actually worked really well! We were worried we wouldn’t be able to get it perfectly round but we did and it wasn’t even all that hard honestly as long as you go slow and steady and don’t try to rush the cut. I’ll show you the jig we built though down below in the next pics because the concept worked really well and on either softer wood or a sheet of plywood/mdf or just anything less thick than our 1 1/2″ solid wood planks, this jig would’ve been the perfect solution to cutting a circle.

TABLE BASE BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS:

Please refer to our Table Design diagram in the first section above ^^.

  1. Cut all your pieces to size.
    For the top cross:
    1 x 32″ (both ends backcut 45*)
    2 x 14 1/4″ (each piece: one end straight, the other backcut 45*)
    For the floor cross:
    1 x 29″ (both ends backcut 15*)
    2 x 12 3/4″ (each piece: one end straight, the other backcut 15*)
    For the legs:
    4 x 28.5″ (both ends cut 15* in the same direction)
  2. Assemble the top and bottom/floor cross pieces as shown in the diagram with pocket hole screws.
  3. Attach the legs to the bottom cross piece as shown in the diagram with pocket hole screws..
  4. Attach the top cross piece to the base as shown in the diagram with countersunk screws.

FINISHING INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. Sand your table down to whatever level of smoothness seems good to you. We just did a couple passes of 150 grit everywhere including the edges with an orbital sander.
  2. If you’re planning to stain your table, now’s the time. Staining is very simple: Stir your stain well (but don’t shake), apply to wood with a rag, wipe off excess with another rag, allow to dry overnight.
  3. Top coating the table is the final step! I used a matte top coat for our table. I applied one coat to the base, but three coats to the tabletop and edges, and I always sand lightly between coats.

Our 48″ table comfortably fits 6 chairs around it:

And you’re done!!

If this sounds like too much work, here are some similar ready-to-order tables for reference:

Other sources:

 
For more sources from our Game Room, click here.
For more sources from our Basement, click here.
For our tutorial on how to DIY a faux brick wall, click here.
For our tutorial on how to install shiplap, click here.
For more of our DIY tutorials, click here.
To explore the other rooms in our house, click here.

How to Make a Wood Block Art Piece (or Sound Diffuser)

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We made an art piece for our home out of little blocks of wood and it’s seriously my new favorite thing ever so I wanted to share how we made it here in case you want to try your hand at making one too!

I’m honestly very picky about art and about what I hang on my walls. If I’m going to display something in my home, I prefer it to be something with special meaning to us or to be something we made ourselves.

We were researching sound diffusers for hubby’s office when we came across this idea that we found dozens of different examples of all over for using simple wood blocks to create acoustic panels or sound diffuser boards. Some favorite variations were on Etsy and I’ll link a few fav examples (each one goes to a different piece): Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy. These options were beautiful, but for our hallway wall nook, we needed a very specific frame size and none of the options we found were exactly the right size or style that we wanted… So we decided to make one!

Two important notes:

  1. In this tutorial, I’m just sharing the process for how we made this particular art piece, but it’s such a versatile art style and there are dozens of different color combinations, sizes, materials, shapes, and configurations that you could make this type of wood art. You could do different colors, use stains instead of paint or even leave it all natural, use different materials or different sizes of wood, etc. I used 2×2 pine lumber for everything for example, but you could use a thicker wood for the frames, use 4x4s instead of 2x2s, I mean the options are endless. So the sizes and quantities I’ve shared here are just what I chose to use but I suggest you take the “concept” away from this tutorial and adapt it to whatever style/colors appeal most to you because there are no real rules to this art.
  2. The size of the art piece we built is around 42 inches x 52 inches. Even if you make this same size piece, you’ll probably need to adjust the frame size slightly depending on the type of lumber you use for the blocks. I used 2×2 framing lumber which has a real size of just under 1 1/2″ x 1 1/2″ so remember that lumber sizes vary and your final frame size is fully determined by the length of exactly how many blocks of the exact type of wood you’re using fit the length and width of your rows.

We used 945 individual blocks of wood in this art piece!
So it’s 27 blocks wide x 35 blocks high.

MATERIALS LIST:

  • 24 x 2″x2″x8′ lumber: Home Depot (for the blocks & frame)
  • 1/4″ MDF or plywood or hardboard panel: Home Depot | Home Depot (for the backing)
  • 4 x 2″ wood screws (for the frame)
  • 16 x 1″ wood screws (for the frame)
  • 4 x 3″ wood screws (to attach art to studs)
  • Wood filler: Home Depot | Amazon
  • Sandpaper: Home Depot | Amazon
  • Construction adhesive: Home Depot
  • Paint or stain of your choice (I used BM Black Panther in Matte because I needed a black color and I happened to have this left over from when we made our Sofa Pit in our Theater Room)

TOOLS LIST:

INSTRUCTIONS:

Note: these instructions are specifically for the exact wood art I made so if you want to do a different style (maybe stain instead of paint, or use different size lumber etc) then you’ll have to adapt the instructions.

PHASE ONE: PREPARING THE LUMBER

  1. Pre-paint & sand all your 2x2s. We laid them outside and rollered each side. Once dry, lightly sand all the rough sections, then paint a second coat. Once dry, they’re ready to be used.
  2. Reserve the 3 nicest full-length 2x2s for your frame, and also reserve 2-3 other 2x2s to cut later.
  3. Carefully cut the remainder of your 2x2s into blocks of varying lengths on a miter saw. We cut pieces at random. It may help to cut a whole 8′ piece into 1″ blocks, the next one into 1 1/2″, then 2, 2 1/2, 3, 3 1/2, 4 4 1/2, 5. Once you get the hang of it, you can cut your pieces at random but make sure you have an even distribution of lengths. The smallest piece I cut was 1/2″ long, the biggest piece was 5″ long, and all the rest were varying lengths in between. The smaller the piece, the more dangerous the cut. (The reason I said to reserve a couple 2x2s in the previous step is that as you build your art piece, you may find that you need more blocks of a specific size and having these extra pieces allows you to create exactly the sizes you need once you need them.)

PHASE TWO: PREPARING THE FRAME

  1. To determine the size of your frame and backer board, first determine the approximate size you want your art piece to be. Mine was approximately 42″ x 52″, then to determine the exact specific size of your backer & frame, place a single row blocks along the length and width of your backer until you’re as close as possible to the size of art piece you want, then place full length 2x2s around the edges. Measure from the outside of the top frame to the outside of the bottom frame for the final length, and measure from the outside of the left frame to the outside of the right frame for the final width. *** Note: You must have the perfect amount of space for a row of blocks along the length and width of your art piece. They should be snug enough that you can’t wiggle the pieces, but loose enough that you can remove and re-insert a block (with a tiny bit of effort).
  2. Cut your 1/4″ backer panel to whatever size perfectly fits under your blocks and frame pieces. We had some 1/4″ MDF that was leftover from another project which we used. It ended up being 2 pieces but that’s no problem since the frame pieces will hold it all together. I just don’t suggest using anything thicker than 1/4″ for the backer as it will just get heavy and 1/8″ is too wobbly.
  3. Cut your frame pieces to size. You’ll need 4 pieces, each one as long as the outer edges of your backer board. Then cut the corners back 45 degrees to create mitered corners.
  4. Dry-fit your frame over your backer board again now that they’re all cut to size and place a row of blocks along the long and short inside sides to be 100% sure that your frame is the perfect fit.
  5. Glue your frame pieces and clamp them onto your backer board making sure they align perfectly both with the edges of the board, and are a perfect fit for the blocks temporarily aligned inside.
  6. Secure the frame pieces to the backer board using the 1″ wood screws screws from the underside of the board so that they don’t show.
  7. Use wood filler to hide the seam between the 2×2 frame pieces and the MDF backer board. Once that dries, sand it down, and repaint one last finish coat of paint over the frame.
  8. Allow to dry completely before continuing (construction adhesive usually needs 24 hours).

PHASE THREE: CREATING THE BLOCK ART

  1. Once your frame is fully dry, create the block art by placing blocks of varying lengths along one of the sides. There are no rules to art but the way I did it was that I created a random non-repeating pattern where each piece was a different size than the pieces all around it. I recommend doing the first few rows “dry” (without glue) just to get used to the process.
  2. Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, shift your pieces upward and begin to glue them into place. I just did one line of glue and pushed the blocks down into it. Keep building your way across the frame. I recommend doing one line at a time so that you can be sure all the blocks are perfectly aligned.

PHASE FOUR: COMPLETING & HANGING THE ART PIECE

Note: depending on how you decide to hang your art piece, the rest of the instructions may or may not apply to you. This art piece is very heavy and we chose to screw it directly into the studs on our wall (so we’re probably never going to take it down). If you have an alternate way of hanging it, then just build your blocks all the way to the top of the frame, allow the glue to fully cure, and hang it however you choose. But if you want to hang it the same way we did, then continue to follow the rest of these instructions.

  1. Build the block art about 3/4 of the way up the frame, then stop. Fill in 1-2 rows up to the top on the far left and right sides, then do a couple rows down from the top. This will create an open space in the middle without blocks that you can use to secure the art piece to the wall from behind the blocks where it can’t be seen.
  2. I then created a “template frame” of the same size as my art piece using extra 2x2s because that helped me determine exactly where on the wall I wanted to hang it. Then we located the studs, calculated where they’d fall on the art frame, and pre-drilled holes for the screws. We were able to get 3 screws directly into studs behind the blocks. Then we filled in the rest of the blocks around the screw holes leaving only the last few pieces off.
  3. Then, before the glue had a chance to cure (giving us more flexibility in case we needed to make adjustments), we hoisted the art piece into place, screwed it into the studs, and filled in the last remaining blocks.
  4. We also added one more screw at the bottom middle right through the frame into the stud just for good measure (seriously, this piece is hefty!!). We counter sunk the screw into the frame just a little so I wood-fillered and painted over it to hide the hole.

And that’s it!!!!!!!!!

Btw, that amazing metal console table can be found at: Walmart | Wayfair | Overstock | Target | Home Depot with a matte black base like I have, or there’s a gunmetal gray version at: Home Depot. It’s the same table everywhere – lots of places just happen to have it. I also painted the top of mine black 😉

I’m so in love with this art piece! It totally completes our hallway and just feels so “us”! I love the mix of natural wood tones & black against our white shiplap. We’ve used this color scheme again and again in many different ways and it was so much fun to find another way to incorporate it into our home!

If you’re thinking this sounds like way too much work, I encourage you to check out some of the amazing art pieces of this style on Etsy (each one goes to a different piece so you can see lots of different versions): Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy | Etsy.

 
For more of our tutorials, click here.
For more sources from our basement, click here.
To follow our daily progress on Instagram, click here.

How to Make a Sofa Pit

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We made a sofa pit for our basement theater room!! It turned out awesome so I’m going to share how we made it here. The story behind this sofa pit is that we love being able to put our feet up and snuggle down while watching movies and this meant that a regular depth sofa for our theater room was out of the question. We need an ultra-deep sofa. I googled endlessly trying to find an affordable sofa matching all our criteria with zero luck. So we were left with two options: we could either get a custom sofa made (insanely pricey at the size we wanted) or we needed to think outside the box… So we got creative and created what we consider the ultimate DIY sofa pit using Ikea chaise units and our own sofa pit frame that we designed and built! This sofa pit is HUGE! It’s around 12.5 ft by 5 ft which is 62+ square feet of sofa!!! This tutorial shares our entire process and instructions for how we made this sofa pit come together.

I’ll start at the beginning. This was our criteria for the sofa we wanted:

  1. It had to be long enough (around 150-160″ in length) based on our Home Theater Room size.
  2. It had to be deep enough that you could have your feet completely up on the sofa for maximum loungy comfort while movie watching. So, deeper than even the deepest “deep” sofa seats.
  3. It had to be leather because we can’t have fabric couches in our house since hubby is allergic to our (5) rescue cats. There’s more information on that in our How to Cope with Cat Allergies post.

Next, I’ll share my sofa research findings below so you can see the various options I found. While none of these were exactly right for us, these were the options that I liked (each link goes to a different sofa):

While these were great options, none of them were fully what we were looking for… So if we wanted to meet our criteria, we needed to create the sofa we were imagining. Our solution started here:

In my research, I learned that Ikea sold the chaise units of their Landskrona sectionals individually (as add-ons) which was awesome because they were the right style, the right material, the right color, and the right depth. So my idea was that I would attach several of these individual chaise units side-by-side to literally create the sofa configuration I’d been searching for! Note: the Landskrona line is being re-released under the new name Morabo so depending on where you are so may see one or the other available on the Ikea site. The styles are identical and all dimensions that matter for this sofa pit (length & width) are the same between the new and old versions so it doesn’t matter which line you use. More details below.

But there were three problems with using these units:

  • Problem 1: These units were never intended to be attached together in the quantity I needed to create a sofa of the right length. I believe no more than 2 units are supposed to be joined together. So if you attach 3+ of these units together, the seat cushions overflow significantly from the base.
  • Problem 2: Since they’re sold as add-ons units to the bigger sectionals and not intended to be used alone or as end-pieces, they didn’t come with armrests and had “unfinished” sides.
  • Problem 3: Once you attach multiple of these chaise units together, the legs look very messy and cluttered (again because that’s not how these units are intended to be assembled or used).

Our solution was to design and build a sofa frame around these chaise units that would both create a platform underneath the sofa (eliminating the need for the legs), and give us armrests. This not only gave this sofa pit a cohesive look, but the armrests essentially acted as two mini walls bolted on either end of the sofa that forced the cushions to squish together which completely solved the overflow issue. Like so:

All our problems were solved with this solution and our sofa pit idea was born! Getting creative gave us a sofa of the size, shape, configuration, color, material, and look we wanted! So now, we had to build it.

DESIGNING THE SOFA PIT PLATFORM & ARMRESTS:

Our general sofa pit design consists of a frame underneath, two armrests on either side, and some trim in front. I’ll first share our plans (with all measurements) below, then go on to the materials lists and actual building instructions. Please note that this sofa pit is designed to go around the specific Ikea chaise units we used (listed below under the materials list section) so if you decide to use different chaise units, then you will naturally need to adjust all the measurements accordingly. But our core design is adaptable and can be used around any chaise units as long as you account for the measurement changes.

MATERIALS LIST:

RAW MATERIALS NEEDED:

  • 2 x 3/4x4x8 plywood cut to 4 x 22 1/4×61 (for the armrests)
  • 8 x 1x8x8 mdf (6 for the armrest trim, 2 for front trim)
  • 7 x 2x8x10 lumber (for the frame)

OTHER MATERIALS NEEDED:

  • Wood filler: Home Depot | Amazon
  • Sandpaper: Home Depot | Amazon
  • Construction adhesive: Home Depot
  • 10-20 x small L-brackets: Home Depot
  • 40-50 x 1″ wood screws for the L-brackets
  • 30 x 3″ wood screws for the under-frame
  • 10 x 1/2″x3″ hex through bolts (I don’t remember exactly what size we used but I think 3″ is fine.)
  • 10 x 1/2″ nuts for the hex bolts
  • 25 x 1/2″x1″ hex head lag bolts (These are decorative on the armrests and functional on the front trim. You need 7 for each armrest + 11 for the front trim.)
  • 65 x washers that fit the bolts (but I recommend buying a box – it’s good to have extra)
  • Matte top coat: Amazon
  • Matte black metal paint: Home Depot
  • Paint: We did BM Black Panther in Matte finish
  • Chaise units: You’ll need 5 of either the Ikea “Landskrona” or “Morabo” chaise units for this sofa pit. It doesn’t matter which line you use since they look identical (see here) and all the dimensions that matter for this sofa pit design (length & width) are the same in both lines. The Morabo is just the slightly newer version of the Landskrona and has legs that are ~1 inch taller, but we’re not using the legs at all so that doesn’t matter and you can use whichever line is in stock. — As mentioned, you can also make this sofa pit using different chaise units but of course you’ll have to adjust the measurements accordingly. For example, Ikea also has another chaise unit in the “Soderhamn” line that is nice and much less expensive (but it didn’t come in leather so we couldn’t use it ourselves).

TOOLS NEEDED:

  • Miter saw: Home Depot | Amazon
  • Drill: Home Depot | Amazon
  • Socket wrench: Home Depot
  • Putty knife: Home Depot | Amazon
  • Measuring tape: Home Depot | Amazon
  • Table saw: Home Depot | Amazon (this is a nice to have, but not need to have. We used to for one cut that I was being a little picky about but if you don’t have one you could make the cut with either a jig saw or circular saw or even just not do this one cut at all. I’ll explain more in the instructions.)

SOFA PIT BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS:

**NOTE 1: I strongly recommend building this sofa pit in place as close to where you intend it to finally place it because it in INSANELY HEAVY once it is fully assembled. Not to mention that the whole thing is one solid unit (~ 12.5′ x 5′ x 2.5′) so it’s just not going to fit through most doors or be very movable.

**NOTE 2: Bolt all your individual chaise units together before building the frame. We stapled landscape fabric to the underside of ours prior to finalizing our sofa pit frame design. In hindsight, it was not a good idea as we has to cut into it to access the armrest bolts so I don’t recommend doing the fabric.

**NOTE 3: All measurements and cut lengths are for our exact sofa pit configuration. If you use different materials or substitute/change any parts, you will have to modify the measurements accordingly.

PART 1 | BUILDING THE ARMRESTS:

First, build 2 armrests for either end of the sofa pit. Each armrest consists of 3 layers: Two identical inner and middle layers of 3/4″ plywood for strength and one outer layer of decorative trim to make it pretty.

  1. Cut the 3/4x4x8 plywood to size: 4 pieces, each one 22 1/4″ x 61″.
  2. Cut the 1x8x8 trim to size: 6 pieces, each one 61″ long.
  3. Glue and nail 2 x two pieces of plywood together, aligning them perfectly. (Clamps are helpful.)
  4. Glue and nail 3 pieces of trim on each armrest, with about 1/4″ gap between the boards. It’s an almost perfect fit, but not quite. So start with the two top & bottom trim pieces and align them perfectly with the outer plywood edges, then glue & nail those into place. Next align your middle trim piece in the exact middle of your outer two trim pieces, and glue & nail it into place. I eyeballed it but the end result is that the gap should be just a hair under 1/4″ evenly between all trim pieces.
  5. Sand the outer edges of your armrests (where the two pieces of plywood and trim meet).
  6. Use wood filler to heavily fill in any uneven spaces. Be generous with the wood filler but do it carefully. I did a layer of wood filler over the entire exterior seams. Also wood filler all nail holes.
  7. Once dry, sand the wood filler until perfectly smooth.
  8. Paint the armrests and allow them to dry for at least one full day.
  9. Top coat your armrests just to seal them once the paint is fully dry.

PART 2 | BUILDING THE SOFA PIT FRAME:

Next, we built the frame that goes under the sofa pit to support it instead of legs. We used 2x8s because that’s how high off the ground we wanted our sofa pit. You could build it higher (with x10s or x12s) or lower (with x4s or x6s) but then you’d need to make your armrests proportionately lower/higher as well). This under-frame is just like framing a wall: it has a header, footer, supports, and blocking.

  1. Cut all the 2x8s to length as per this list:
    – 2 pieces 73″ long (Box A header + footer)
    – 2 pieces 73 3/4″ long (Box B header + footer)
    – 6 pieces 57 1/4″ long (Support pieces – one on either end of the 2 boxes + 1 in the middle)
    – 3 pieces 34 1/2″ long (Blocking – 2 for Box A, 1 for Box B)
    – 1 piece at 35″ long (Blocking – second piece for Box B)
  2. Assemble them into 2 boxes as per the diagram below using 3″ wood screws.
  3. Attach your two boxes together (with screws) to make one large rectangular frame box.

PART 3 | ASSEMBLING THE SOFA PIT:

Now that you have all the individual parts of your sofa pit frame made, it’s time to bring them all together.

  1. Tilt your sofa units up on their back (they should already all be bolted together) so that the underside is vertical and accessible. Place them as close to their final destination as possible because once this whole thing is assembled it’s VERY, very, very, very hard to move.
  2. Align the frame boxes with the underside + back of the sofa and attach it to the bottom of the sofa frame with using small L-brackets. The frame will be a little shorter than the sofa so you’ll notice a gap at the front. This is intentional to allow for trim to be attached to the front at the end to make it pretty. So frame should align perfectly with the back and two sides of the underside of the sofa, but end just under an inch short of the front. Note: There are these little triangular wood pads under the sofa units where the legs are intended to be attached to that you can use to anchor the frame.
  3. Pre-drill the 12 pilot holes for your bolts in each armrest no more than 1″ deep as per the measurements shown on my diagram. Remember: once the armrests are attached, only 5 bolts on each armrest will go all the way through and bolt directly into the sofa frame, the rest are decorative.
  4. One at at a time, place your armrests in place at the side of the sofa, align them perfectly with the bottom of the sofa frame. Then re-pre-drill the 5 holes for the “through bolts” that will attach the armrest to the sofa (4 along the middle trim piece, and 1 in the back of the top piece) using a fresh 6″ drill bit – this time drilling right through the sofa frame. It’s very important that this drill bit be sharp because it needs to go through leather and stuffing and it’ll rip/snag them if it’s dull.
  5. Attach the armrests to the frame with washers & bolts. All bolts (decorative or structural) need a washer on the outside, and the through bolts get a nut/washer combo on the inside.
  6. Cut 1×8 trim down to size to fit along the front of the sofa in that 1/2″ gap and pre-paint them. (Note: we ended up table sawing 1/8″ off the bottom of this trim piece to give it a better fit. We shouldn’t have had to since the 1×8 trim is the same size as the 2×8 frame it covers, but in some spots the leather was a little bunched and pushing the 1×8 down (without affecting the 2×8) so taking 1/8″ off the bottom just gave it a better fit. If your leather isn’t bunched this might not be an issue for you, and you don’t have a table saw you can use a circular saw or jig saw instead.)
  7. Carefully paint the top of the 2×8 that’s at the front of the sofa the same color as you plan to make your sofa frame (this is just to make it look seamless once the trim is attached).
  8. Now that your sofa pit frame is attached to the chaise units and the armrests are attached, flip the sofa down and place it in the final spot where it’s going to rest. We used foam pieces under the sofa to help it slide across the floor. Now that it’s been assembled, the sofa unit is massive and insanely heavy so it NOT EASY to move, which is why I recommended building it in place.
  9. Fit the seat cushions into place. This is harder than it seems so I have a tip to make it easier. Earlier I mentioned the problem with these seat cushions is that they’re each a couple inches bigger than their frames meaning that the overall cushion length is greater than the overall sofa width. This means the cushions will have to squish down quite a bit to fit into the sofa pit frame we just built – but they will fit as long as you do the following: First, you have to tape off the velcro lines before placing the cushions down so that the cushions do not immediately attach to the sofa base. This allows you to push and pull and squish them into place until they all fit. It takes a bit of effort and wiggling, but it does work! Once you’re happy with the seat cushion configuration, carefully reach under and remove the tape and push the cushions down so that the velcro latches on.
  10. Using the same “tape & squish” method, fit the back cushions into place.
  11. Attach the 1x1x8 trim to the front of the sofa with lag bolts. I did 11 bolts spaced out across the middle but that’s largely decorative because I wanted an industrial look but you could just as easily attach this trim with glue & nails. I also painted my bolts black but that’s just a personal choice.

That’s it!!!

We successfully created the sofa pit of our dreams with some creativity and now we have a unique, comfortable, custom designed spot to snuggle down and watch movies where everyone gets the “comfy” spot! And the best part is that compared to literally any other remotely similar sofa of this general size, this was a seriously cost effective solution. Next up, I’ll be on the hunt for ALL the throw pillows!

These are some of the throw pillows I’m considering for our sofa (haven’t decided yet though) and I’ll keep adding more links in here. Each link goes to a different pillow I love the style of:

Be sure to follow us on Instagram @ahousewebuilt to follow our progress as we continue to finish both this home theater room and do more building projects around the rest of our home!

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How to Build Bypass Barn Doors

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We built 6 barn doors in 5 days for our basement and in this tutorial I’m going to share how we made them along with a really important tip that makes all the difference in creating a cohesive and balanced look in bypass barn doors. In total for this project, we built 6 barn doors: 4 double bypass barn doors for our basement, as well as 2 other single doors we used in our master closet entry. And yes, all of the 4 bypass barn doors pictured above are fully functional doors (meaning none are fixed in place).

There are many different ways to build barn doors but the process simply breaks down into two parts: First is the hardware (track, hangers, fasteners etc). Second is the door (usually a backer board plus trim).

After building 6 doors, we became veryyyy good at this process. I’m pretty sure I could build a barn door in my sleep at this point. For some context, it took us four full days to build the first four doors, but the second two doors we fully built and painted and hung in less than ONE day! But since we’d never done this before, we made some mistakes and had some “learning experiences” so in this tutorial, I’m going to share not only how to build barn doors, but I’m also going to share what we did wrong along the way and how we fixed those things so hopefully you can learn both from our mistakes and our successes.

Our gray paint color is BM Revere Pewter.

STEP 1: DESIGNING YOUR BARN DOORS:

I chose to do repeating and reversing chevron pattern across all four of our barn doors. So, each door alone was asymmetrical but once all the doors were hung side-by-side, they created a chevron pattern.

Below was my original design concept for our doors (I say “concept” because this was what I generally wanted the doors to look like, but it was not the practical representation of how they’d align):

However, we chose a single track double bypass hardware system, so our final design is shown below. All 4 doors we built on our bypass track are fully functional (none of them are fixed in place) so each of them lead somewhere and each of them can be opened by sliding in front or behind each other.

Each of the doors is actually different than the other. The graphic below breaks it down, and the reason why is fully explained at the bottom of this tutorial under “Accounting for Overlap in Bypass Barn Doors”.

Our doors are about 3.5′ wide x 8′ tall and we did 45 degree angles everywhere.

STEP 2: CHOOSING BARN DOOR HARDWARE:

If you choose to do one barn door alone, or two barn doors just beside each other (without the ability to slide behind each other), then you have two options:

  1. For one barn door alone, you just need a single track plus the necessary hardware. There are lots of different styles available out there, but this is my favorite style: Amazon | Home Depot.
  2. For two barn doors side-by-side, you need something like this: Amazon | Home Depot.

If you choose to do bypass barn doors as we did (meaning that the doors can slide in front of or behind each other), then you have two options:

  1. A double rail bypass system like this: Amazon | Home Depot
  2. A single rail bypass system like this: Amazon | Walmart (the style type we chose)

So, we chose to do a single rail bypass system with all 4 barn doors hanging off one track. Meaning that two doors are “in front” and two doors are “behind”. The “behind doors” are on straight hangers, while the “front” doors have angled hanger that lifts them to hang in front so that back doors can slide behind them.

With this (and any) 4-door bypass system, you next have to pick which doors are “front” doors and which doors hang “behind” and there are 4 configurations you can choose from:

Option A = Door 1: In front | Door 2: Behind | Door 3: In front | Door 4: Behind
Option B = Door 1: Behind | Door 2: In front | Door 3: Behind | Door 4: In front

Option C = Door 1: Behind | Door 2: In front | Door 3: In front | Door 4: Behind
Option D = Door 1: In front | Door 2: Behind | Door 3: Behind | Door 4: In front

We chose Option D because, in our hallway, Doors 1 & 4 will be our most-used doors so we wanted them to hang in the front. Also I’m personally drawn more to the symmetry of Options C & D overall.

MATERIALS LIST FOR BARN DOORS

Note 1: the “trim” materials you need will differ based on your door design. I’ve listed the materials we needed for our door design but a different door design will naturally require different trim materials.

Note 2: I used primed MDF trim since I planned to paint my doors. If you plan to stain them instead, then you will need to use real wood trim.

Raw materials for Doors 1 & 4, or our “Front Doors” (so we needed this x 2):

  • 1 x 3/4″x4’x8′ sanded plywood backer board cut down to size, per door
  • 3 x 1″x5″x8′ MDF trim around the perimeter of each door, per door
  • 3 x 1″x2″x8′ MDF trim for the slanted battens, per door

Raw materials for Doors 2 & 3, or our “Behind Doors” (so we needed this x 2):

  • 1 x 3/4″x4’x8′ sanded plywood backer board cut down to size, per door
  • 3 x 1″x5″x8′ MDF trim around the perimeter of each door, per door
  • 3 x 1″x2″x8′ MDF trim for the slanted battens, per door
  • 1 x 1″x6″x8′ MDF trim to cover the extra width, per door *

* This is explained in the “Accounting for Overlap” section of this tutorial below.

SUMMARY OF ALL RAW MATERIALS NEEDED FOR OUR 4 BARN DOORS:

  • 4 x 3/4″x4’x8′ sanded plywood backer board cut down to size *
  • 12 x 1″x5″x8′ MDF trim around the perimeter of each door
  • 12 x 1″x2″x8′ MDF trim for the slanted battens
  • 2 x 1″x6″x8′ MDF trim to cover the extra widths on “behind” doors

* Our doors are approximately 3.5 ft x 8 ft.

TOOLS NEEDED TO BUILD THE DOORS:

OTHER MATERIALS NEEDED:

ACCESSORIES:

BARN DOOR HARDWARE KITS:

* Our hardware is custom but we did a single rail bypass with four doors.

HARDWARE MOUNTING TIPS:

  • You must have some kind of support/beam on/in your wall to mount your track on. We designed and built this part in our basement with the intention of having barn doors here so we did in a structural beam for our track to hang off. If you don’t have something like that, then you may want to consider some kind of wooden header bar to strengthen where the track hangs from because the weight of all the doors will hang off this so it can’t just be screwed into drywall.
  • Follow the mounting directions on the hardware kit you get because each one will be slightly different. For our bypass track though essentially it was just bolted to the wall with offsets.
  • Make sure your track is level!!!!!! This is seriously so, so, so, so, so important.
  • Mount the track to your wall before you take your final door measurements.

BARN DOOR BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS:

Note 1: these instructions can apply to any barn door design that is a combination of a backer board and trim on top, so these instructions are adaptable to many different barn door styles other than our design.

Note 2: we pre-painted all individual pieces before assembly. Pre-painting is just my personal preference, but not necessary. If you don’t want to pre-paint, ignore all paint references and paint/stain at the end.

Note 3: if you’re building bypass barn doors, you must read my “Accounting for Overlap in Bypass Barn Doors” tip below these instructions before you build anything! I just put it at the end because it only applies to bypass doors and if you’re just building regular non-bypassing doors, then it’s not relevant.

Note 4: You may notice that the timeline in my pics doesn’t fully line up with these instructions and that’s because on our first door (which I took progress pics of), we weren’t as confident so we painted each set of trim as we cut them instead of cutting everything up front, which is how we did the rest of the doors.

  1. Cut the plywood backer board down to the size you want your door. (ours are approx 3.5′ x 8′)
  2. Use wood filler on any imperfections. Once dry, sand and paint both sides. Once the first coat of paint has dried, sand the entire surface lightly, and once it’s smooth then paint the second coat.
  3. Cut all your perimeter trim to size. The vertical side pieces are the same height as your door panel. The short header/footer pieces are the width of the door minus the width of the side trim pieces.
  4. Cut your battens to size. For the first door, while we were figuring out the measurements, we cut them all in half to 48″ and cut one side to 45*, then placed them on the door and used them to measure the length. We had two batten sizes in total (one long, one short), so once we determined those lengths, we just used those battens to mark the length on all the rest of them. The first one is the hardest, all the rest are easy. Note: the battens on Doors 1 & 3 have exact opposite angles as Doors 2 & 4. (We also created a spacer guide cut to the space between the battens.)
  5. Dry-fit all the trim & battens on the backer board just to make sure you measured and cut everything properly and that all the pieces fit perfect as intended before moving to the next step.
  6. Paint all your trim & battens. I use a brush & roller because it’s easier cleanup than a sprayer.
  7. Attach all the trim to your door with adhesive and nails. Start with your perimeter trim (first do the long side pieces, then the two shorter header/footer pieces). Next, attach the battens.
  8. Wood filler all the nail holes, seams between trim pieces, and the two long exterior sides of the doors (where the plywood and trim meet) to visually erase all seams between boards.
  9. Once dry, sand all the wood filler spots down (including the two exterior long sides of the doors), then touch up the paint where needed (I actually re-rollered the top of all the trim with a small roller).
  10. Attach the door pulls. (We did this after our doors were hung but if you know where you want your pulls at this point in the building process, then you can just attach them now.)
  11. Attach the hangers to your doors according your hardware’s guidelines. Essentially, you just drill holes in alignment with the holes on your hangers and bolt the hangers to the door.
  12. Hang the doors. If you have bypass doors, start with the “behind” doors.
  13. Install door stops and floor guides (should come with your hardware kit).

ACCOUNTING FOR OVERLAP IN BYPASS BARN DOORS:

If you’re building bypass barn doors (especially on a single rail), this is VERY IMPORTANT. This is why our “behind” doors are different widths than our “front” doors. See, everywhere says “do about an inch of overlap” between bypass doors but that does not work if you want the full design of your “behind” door to be visible from the front! This seems painfully obvious in hindsight, but I didn’t see anyone mention it so I didn’t consider it until after we’d built our first 4 doors. So I’m sharing both our mistake and our solution.

Let me explain: If you take the full width of your space and divide by the number of doors you’re going to do, then add one inch of overlap and build 4 doors that are exactly the same size on a single track bypass system, as you can see in the picture below, several inches of the design on the “Behind” doors (in our case: Doors 2 & 3) are visually lost behind the “Front” doors (in our case: Doors 1 & 4).

Furthermore, due to the overlap, the total width of the doors no longer covers the total width of the track (duh, right? *sigh*). But if you’re wondering why we didn’t just build wider doors, that’s because while wider doors would solve the problem of physically covering the space, the visual design would still be equally messed up from the overlaps partially hiding the “behind” doors. Let me show you what I mean:

In real life, this is how that looks (cuz yep, we messed up the first time around):

Note 1: If you’re working with double rail bypass hardware, this isn’t really a problem.

Note 2: If your door design doesn’t have any perimeter trim (so, if it was all horizontal or vertical boards, or even a single-slab design), this wouldn’t really matter. Or maybe some people wouldn’t care, but for me, this situation was unacceptable because my design needed all 4 doors to be fully visible for the chevron pattern to flow properly from one door to the next. Not only were almost 6-inches of Doors 2 & 3 visually lost when all the doors were the same size, but the worst part was that the battens no longer lined up with each other because almost 6 inches of Doors 2 & 3 were hidden behind Doors 1 & 4.

My mistake was that in my excitement to build these barn doors, I didn’t properly consider how much visual space my design would lose from the overlap before building the doors. So, here was our solution:

We decided to rebuild the two middle “behind” doors and modify them to cheat the difference. Visually, they’d look perfectly aligned, but in reality both of them would be different sizes. This is how we did it.

We calculated that the amount of visual width we were losing with the bypass system was 5 1/2 inches per door – but we were only losing it on the side of the doors that was behind the “front” doors. Meaning that we needed to add 5 1/2 inches to the left side of the middle-left door, and we needed to add 5 1/2 inches to the right side of the middle-right door. Note: your additional width measurements will differ depending on your door and space size so our math probably won’t work for another space.

Rebuilding our “behind” doors (Doors 2 & 3) like this made the VISIBLE parts of the doors the same widths, but the hidden additional widths allowed them to slide behind Doors 1 & 4 without hiding any of the chevron design and keeping the battens in line. (Note: If we had simply remade Doors 2 & 3 wider instead of only adding width behind the overlap, the batten alignment would mess up.) So…

  • Doors 1 & 4 were same size (but opposite designs)
  • Door 2 needed extra width on the left side to account for the overlap behind Door 1
  • Door 3 needed extra width on the right side to account for the overlap behind Door 4

With 4 barn doors, the angle of the battens has to switch each time like this: \\ // \\ //.

And if you do bypass barn doors in a different configuration (see Options A, B, C, D above), it’ll always be your “Behind” doors needing extra width anywhere a “Front” door overlaps them.

And here is our solution in real life:

Luckily, we had good uses for our two “extra” barn doors – we ended up hanging them together as a single-rail double door feature flanking the entry to our master closet using a long rail and a double set of door hangers (like these: Home Depot | Home Depot) so it all worked out in the end.

I really hope this all makes sense and is helpful for anyone thinking about building bypass doors! 😀

Finally, here is a finished picture of our barn door wall:

Sources: baskets | candle holders | wood links | similar vase
Tutorials: Tutorial: How to Install Shiplap | How to Install Open Shelving

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Creamy No-Cheese Pasta Sauce

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I’ve recently been loving this blended red pasta sauce so I thought I’d share the recipe for anyone who wants to try it. It’s easy to make and seriously I’ve made it like three times in a row – that’s how good it is!

I think this recipe will be especially appealing to anyone who is either vegan or trying to limit their dairy consumption because it tastes cheesy without having any dairy products at all. The secret is blended chickpeas. I’m not really sure why it tastes cheesy because (at least to me) whole chickpeas just don’t really have that flavor, but when you blend them into this sauce it turns really creamy and delicious. This is also a great way to make a simple pasta red sauce healthier and heartier than it otherwise might be.

If you store it separately from the pasta, this sauce will stay fresh for several days in the fridge so I really have been loving just having it on hand for days when you don’t feel like making a meal from scratch.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 medium can of tomatoes (around 30oz) – mashed
  • 1 small can of chickpeas (around 15oz) – drained & rinsed
  • 1 medium/large onion – chopped
  • 3 cloves of garlic (optional) – chopped
  • 2 celery stalks or 1 medium zucchini* (optional but tasty) – chopped
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp dried basil
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • 1 tsp dried parsley
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (optional but I like the spice)
  • 2 tbsp white sugar
  • 3 tbsp olive oil (this is for flavor so don’t skimp!)

*Note about the celery/zucchini: I’ve made this both ways depending on what I have on have and both versions are tasty but I slightly prefer the celery option. Both are good though. Also, you could easily add in any other veggie you wanted. The whole thing gets blended up so it just becomes a part of the sauce and it’s a great way to sneak more veggies into your meals! Just limit the quantity to about one medium-zucchini’s-worth of ‘other’ veggies so it doesn’t overpower the sauce – a red pepper would be great too.

PREPARATION:

  1. I like to pre-prep all my ingredients into 2 bowls: I chop up all the veg and place it right into the pot with the olive oil. And in another bowl, I combine the tomato/chickpea cans and seasonings so they’re ready to go once I start cooking.
  2. In a pot on medium high heat, cook the chopped onion, garlic, celery, and olive oil until the onions are translucent and the celery has softened (about 4-5 mins), stirring frequently.
  3. Add in everything else (tomatoes, chickpeas, seasonings). Reduce heat to medium, stir mixture until combined, and cook covered for ~ 10 mins (stirring every couple minutes so it doesn’t stick).
  4. Blend it!!! That’s the secret. Just blend it all like you would a soup. So far, I’ve just used an immersion blender (mine’s pretty old but I think this is the newer version of it: Amazon | Walmart) and blended it right in the pot, but you could also use a stand mixer (just be careful to allow room for the hot the air to escape).
  5. Serve with your pasta of choice and enjoy!

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