PLANS: Build a Ladder Golf set for $30!!!

| sorenlancaster
Stay in the loop! Be sure to follow-me on Instagram and  Facebook! You can also follow me on Pinterest to see what I’m inspired by and find inspiration of your own.

Happy Fourth of July!!! I’m not 100% on this, but I’m pretty sure that the very first thing our forefather’s did after signing the Declaration of Independence was go out to the nearest park, put up their ladder golf set, and got in some “wicked” games (yeah, that’s right. I went all Bostonian on you). There is no doubt that George Washington was a ladder golf expert, after all, it’s a well-known fact. Couldn’t lie, chopped down cherry trees and had a nasty bolo toss! Well, that’s what I like to believe anyway. Even if our forefather’s didn’t play ladder golf, there is no reason why you can’t, and if you’ve wanted a ladder golf set, but didn’t want to spend the money, fear not! These plans cost me less than $30.00 to build, including the set of bolos which were $9.00 themselves! Continue reading →

PLANS: Build a GIANT JENGA set for $11

DIY GIANT JENGA
| sorenlancaster
Stay in the loop! Be sure to follow-me on Instagram and  Facebook! You can also follow me on Pinterest to see what I’m inspired by and find inspiration of your own!

Ahhhh, summer. The time for heatstroke, sun burns, and sticky stinky smelly sweat dripping all over your projects. Don’t get me wrong, I like summer, and I enjoy going to the lake and doing things outdoors, but something about constant 100-degree or near 100-degree days drives me crazy. But all is not lost, summer is also time for barbeques with friends and family!!! For years, our backyard has been dedicated to our kids, but as they’ve gotten older, they used the yard less and less. Over the last year we’ve been adding to our yard, making it more for us and for entertaining. Being BBQ season, I decided having some outdoor games would be fun, but I didn’t want to spend too much on them either. The first idea I had was for a giant Jenga set. I looked them up and found them priced at close to $100. Continue reading →

REVEAL: Build a Farmhouse Swamp Cooler Stand

| sorenlancaster
Stay in the loop! Be sure to follow-me on Instagram and  Facebook! You can also follow me on Pinterest to see what I’m inspired by and find inspiration of your own!

Slowly but surely my wife has become a believer. She’s gone from eye rolling and snickering when I mention I want to build something, to showing me pictures of things she likes and asking me to build what she wants. To her credit, when someone who has no experience using power tools, let alone owns one, says they want to build a patio set instead of buying one, it’s bound to solicit some comical reactions. Over the last year or so, as I brought in project after project, after project, after project (sorry about all the saw dust in the garage honey, it wasn’t me I swear!) she has started “looking” for things to have done. Continue reading →

PLANS: Build reclaimed farmhouse frames for $10

Farmhouse Style Frames
| sorenlancaster
Stay in the loop! Be sure to follow-me on Instagram and  Facebook! You can also follow me on Pinterest to see what I’m inspired by and find inspiration of your own!

I needed new frames. Why? Because the ones I had sucked, that’s why. To put it in to better context, to me they were nothing more than black cheap, flimsy, plastic matter that a monkey might fling at you. Yes, you read that correctly. I just referred to my frames as monkey poo. Not only were they doo doo, but they were an eye sore that bugged me every time that I went in to the bedroom. At first it wasn’t such a big deal, but ever since I built our headboard, they have been bothering me more and more. The truth is, I didn’t buy the frames. I bought the artwork that was in them. Continue reading →

TUTORIAL: Getting an awesome distressed and reclaimed wood look in 10-minutes

Make distressed lumber
| sorenlancaster
Stay in the loop! Be sure to follow-me on Instagram and  Facebook! You can also follow me on Pinterest to see what I’m inspired by and find inspiration of your own!

I love the look of old barn wood. I would love to have a stockpile of reclaimed lumber in my garage that I could sift through for my projects. Unfortunately I live in a city and finding old rustic lumber isn’t that simple (maybe it is and I just don’t know where to look). I recently posted the reveal for my farmhouse frames and I wanted a distressed look, but being that I wasn’t painting the frames, I wanted to pay close attention to the detail. I wanted to rely on the look of the lumber and the stain to bring out the old and worn look. The method I discovered worked wonders for me, and was so incredibly simple, I can’t believe it actually works. Continue reading →

REVEAL: Build a rustic DIY frame for $10

Farmhouse Style Frames
| sorenlancaster
Stay in the loop! Be sure to follow-me on Instagram and  Facebook! You can also follow me on Pinterest to see what I’m inspired by and find inspiration of your own!

Ever since I finished the barndoor headboard, the frames of my daughter’s artwork from school have been driving me crazy. We won the artwork at a fundraiser auction for her school, and all they used were super cheap, black plastic frames (which would make sense as they need as much money to go to the school) and I knew at some point I would change them out for something that fit in better with our décor.  I thought about buying some, but couldn’t really find any 18″x24″ frames that I liked. I had started thinking about making them, but a few things were holding me back. Continue reading →

Flash Back Build: Building a Farmhouse TV Console

Farmhouse TV console
| sorenlancaster
Stay in the loop! Be sure to follow-me on Instagram and  Facebook! You can also follow me on Pinterest to see what I’m inspired by and find inspiration of your own!

So apparently Ana White has a great book out called the Handbuilt Home. In this book there are plans for a farmhouse style console table. I know this… now. Too bad for me, I didn’t discover this until after I built this project last year. Instead, I took the plans I had used to make my farmhouse nightstand and modified them to fit what I was looking for. Fortunately, from what I can tell, her plans were very similar to how I built this table. The biggest change is I used several 1×6 planks for the table top opposed to plywood attached to a 1×3 and 1×2. So do yourself a favor and pick-up Ana’s book so that you don’t waste time modifying plans only to find out they already exist. Continue reading →

PLANS: Building a kids bench for under $15

DIY Kids benches and table
| sorenlancaster

 

Stay in the loop! Be sure to follow-me on Instagram and Facebook! You can also follow me on Pinterest to see what I’m inspired by and find inspiration of your own!

Yes, you read that right. This bench will cost approximately $10-15 depending on lumber used. We ended up using a mix of premium lumber and “furring strip boards” so our cost was slightly higher, but even assuming you used premium pine throughout, I’d imagine the cost per bench still being around $20 or so in lumber. But why a kids bench you ask? Continue reading →

REVEAL: Build a kids bench for under $15

DIY Kids Benches and table
| sorenlancaster
Stay in the loop! Be sure to follow-me on Instagram and  Facebook! You can also follow me on Pinterest to see what I’m inspired by and find inspiration of your own!

A couple of months ago my good friend Adrian asked me to help him build a small table for his daughters. He wanted to make them a play table for coloring, drawing, arts and crafts, etc. We built a small table at the same time I built a craft table for my daughter. The idea was for him to come back the following weekend and we were going to build some benches for the kids as well. As it can happen when you’re an adult, life got in the way and we couldn’t get back together to build them until recently. Continue reading →