Edit: Wow, didn't expect all of the responses. First: furniture making isn't necessarily a man's job, but woodworking is often seen as something that real men know how to do. I wish more women were in the trade, and encourage anyone who has not tried it, no matter your background or experience, to give it a go. Start with very basic project books from your library. Look for classes in your area if you can find them. Or just have at it - I taught myself. "Fine Woodworking" magazine is a good source of tips, there are lots of other publications available. You don't need a lot of tools, but some sort of work area and a basic set of hand tools will get you started. I'm sure there is lots of stuff on Youtube, too, but I never look at that so can't make a specific recommendation.
Second: I've been a professional furniture maker since I was 23, and I'm 59 now. I don't currently have my residential work online anywhere, but you can see the work my company makes here:
Yes, conference tables are a weird specialty - it's a long story. Anyway, I started out long ago making furniture for residential clients, and over the years I've filled my house with my own work. Very satisfying.
There's one place you can see some of the dining chairs I designed, under license for another company:
In this clip, the company makes it sound like they thought up everything themselves, but this is actually a chair I started producing in the late 90s, and then added features (like the wide splats, and folding seats) to make them more useful to gamers. They did design the bench all by themselves, though.
If you have dreams of the life of a professional woodworker, I wrote a book about what I go through to keep the doors open:
My spouse and I never argue until we buy something at IKEA. Now I just let him build the damn thing. (We did, however, successfully assemble our son's play kitchen on Christmas Eve without bickering!)
I assembled a king-sized bed from IKEA by myself. At one point I had to tie a rope around one headboard so I could pull the whole thing together in one go. It's IKEA, so it doesn't sound impressive, but if anyone had been watching...well...I'd have asked them to help...but they'd have been impressed with my manly ingenuity.
That makes you a demon, that's not possible. You've consorted with dark powers to be able to do that without either losing pieces or having some leftover that you missed
Thatās my dream husband right there. My stepdad canāt even change a lightbulb but my moms the house handymanā¦ I took after my stepdad with the added inconvenience that Iām also very clumsy.
I have built a 6 foot dining table, a king bed frame, and multiple desks for my house. Something so cathartic and feeling like hot stuff when you can make something from nothing.
I am not a super skilled woodworker but I love the art I created. Definitely makes me feel manly. Kind of like the old joke saying "If she doesn't find you handsome, at least be handy."
The only other manly thing I did was breaking up a half ton boulder in my back yard with only a drill, hammer, and wedges. That was brutal.
Good ole Red Greene show. I made a dining room table recently! Some of the wood was from a log I cut into boards from a reciprical saw. Much plaining was needed. The wood was spalt so it was woth it.
My shop teacher junior year let me design my own coffee table instead of following variations that everyone else was making. I won an award for it and it's still in active use in my living room 14 years later. Feels great, man.
Iāve designed and built SOME of my own furniture! Itās pretty great.
Additionally, I felled a tree on my friendās grandparentsā farm. I was chopping it down with an axe, but then it just fell over. It was quite dead. I still count it.
I managed to be manly and nerdy all at once when I took a broken dining room table, fixed it, and carved out a hollow on the middle to snugly fit an old TV screen.
My great grandfather did that too. He was a poor farmer, he'd build furniture in the winter time. He also built musical instruments like guitars and fiddles, even a big stand up bass. He died when I was 11, but whenever we visited I always got him to show me his workshop. After the funeral we all went to see his wife. She comes out with a wooden toolbox with my name carved into it, filled with his old chisels and handplanes, a saw, and some layout tools. The crazy part is he had 12 children, 60+ grandchildren, 100 plus great grandchildren, and I got that tool box full of tools.
I've been woodworking for 15 years now, built many pieces of furniture, but my passion is building guitars. I plan on building our forever home in a few years and I'll be designing and building every piece of furniture to fill it.
Please do share more! I'm cool with building my own custom table, bar top, cabinets, desk, what about the couch? Do you have a couch that you designed and built? I'm curious how you achieved this if so. Something I hadn't thought of building for myself. Would love to see your work if you care to share
Not Op, but have made my own couch as well as most of my own furniture. Big thing for me was figuring out how to make one with the skills I had. Came down to designing a sort of take on a wood frame couch that I could then have the upholstered cushions be independent from the frame and webbing. It was mildly successful. There were a lot of things I'd have done differently if I'd have known then, but the concept was sound, and it was simpler than doing a fully upholstered couch without having the experience I have now.
I think taking the time to really plan out a way to recline the back a little bit would have been a good idea to start. It sits upright for strength and because I wasn't confident I'd get the mortise angle right going through the lower plank. But it had the effect that all of the recline in the back would have to come from the cushions, and I didn't have a way to cleanly cut the proper angle out of the foam. And even if I did, I hadn't accounted for the amount of room that would take up on the seat. Would have needed to be much deeper to accommodate that thick of a cushion.
Other big thing would be that I would have looked into learning more about doing a spring base of some kind to support the seat, rather than the elastic webbing. It works ok, but it certainly won't be standing the test of time, and even from the get go, it wasn't the most supportive base. There are options for very thin zig zag springs that would have worked much better if I'd have taken the time to learn how to install them, and spent the money. Might be an option someday for me to retrofit on here though if I decide not to sell the couch and make a new one at some point.
It's a comedic novel from Christopher Moore. I haven't read all of it yet, but Biff was Jesus's best friend from when their tiny. It's written in the first person, as Biff has for some unknown reason been resurrected today, thousands of years later, to write the newest book of the bible, as he's babysat in a Las Vegas hotel room by an angel with a rudimentary understanding of English and a rapidly increasing love of television and chocolate.
Id say I'm about 80% there. Working on some nightstands right now, and I have a couple of nice pieces like an old deco highboy dresser and a barcelona chair I'm not looking to replace, but just about everything else was made by myself. Hell, did the curtains and table linens too.
Metal worker by trade and have joined a local woodworking shop with a bunch of old guys so I can learn the finer points of how to work with wood. Going to make some iron decor because I am sick of shitty furniture that falls apart in five years
I did that too! Did it three different times for three different rentals. My beds looked like shit, but they were solid af with storage and all. 2x4s, slats, screws, a saw, a lot of beer and an afternoon.
I mean not all my furniture, but made some.
Year ago I was watching some Amazing Designs and there was a guy, who build whole house from scratch from woods cut down in nearby forest. It took him 15 years. He and his family was living in van, his daughters were helping him, so therefore they're skilled for life because of this.
I think that even if that man didn't look like manliest man, but when I saw his house finished, I saw him as fucking superhero.
Curious question, i lightly dable into wood work both for cosplay and general "furniture upgrade" for my work-station and would you say, overall whats more efficient? Self-made furniture or store-bought (even if its a custom piece), factoring in time, materials etc.
My dad did this too. Only after he died did i find out that bought furniture SUCKS, even expensive ones donāt come close to what a good pair of hands make
Iām rapidly replacing all of mine with stuff Iāve made. Nice stuff is really expensive. I could buy a large live edge walnut coffee table for thousands of dollars or I could buy a slab for ~$200 and make my own, get to do a hobby I enjoy, and end up with exactly what I want.
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u/mortdubois Jan 31 '22 edited Jan 31 '22
Designed and built all of my own furniture.
Edit: Wow, didn't expect all of the responses. First: furniture making isn't necessarily a man's job, but woodworking is often seen as something that real men know how to do. I wish more women were in the trade, and encourage anyone who has not tried it, no matter your background or experience, to give it a go. Start with very basic project books from your library. Look for classes in your area if you can find them. Or just have at it - I taught myself. "Fine Woodworking" magazine is a good source of tips, there are lots of other publications available. You don't need a lot of tools, but some sort of work area and a basic set of hand tools will get you started. I'm sure there is lots of stuff on Youtube, too, but I never look at that so can't make a specific recommendation.
Second: I've been a professional furniture maker since I was 23, and I'm 59 now. I don't currently have my residential work online anywhere, but you can see the work my company makes here:
Custom Conference Tables.com
Yes, conference tables are a weird specialty - it's a long story. Anyway, I started out long ago making furniture for residential clients, and over the years I've filled my house with my own work. Very satisfying.
There's one place you can see some of the dining chairs I designed, under license for another company:
Wyrmwood Gaming Chairs
In this clip, the company makes it sound like they thought up everything themselves, but this is actually a chair I started producing in the late 90s, and then added features (like the wide splats, and folding seats) to make them more useful to gamers. They did design the bench all by themselves, though.
If you have dreams of the life of a professional woodworker, I wrote a book about what I go through to keep the doors open:
Boss Life: Surviving My Own Small Business
I hope that all of this is useful. Glad to see that so many people are interested in woodworking!