Month: May 2015

REVEAL: Build a rustic DIY frame for $10

Farmhouse Style Frames
| sorenlancaster
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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 →

Flash Back Build: The Barndoor Headboard

Bardoor Headboard
| 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!

As I discussed in my last post, last year we purchased a new bed. When looking at how we were going to need to rearrange the layout in the bedroom, I realized it would be an opportunity to update our furniture. I prefer older, more rustic or country style furnishings, and felt we could revamp the whole bedroom. Luckily my wife does too, so the task of getting her buy-in for it was rather simple. The only problem was, furniture can be expensive, especially the furniture that I tend to want (here’s looking at you Restoration Hardware). Not that I have any qualms about high quality furniture being expensive. I just have qualms about seeing high dollar amounts leaving my bank account. Feeling somewhat confident that nothing could be as bad as my first build, I decided I would research some DIY furniture. Continue reading →

The start of something bigger…

| 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!

The first project I ever did was a small cedar box garden for my daughter with plans from Ana White. I had promised to make her a garden of some sort and figured it’d be an easy project. Considering how little I knew about working with wood, I’m surprised it even held together. But it did, and she has a nice area in the backyard now that she can plant in. Continue reading →

Hello world!

| sorenlancaster

My name is Soren Lancaster, I live in Reno, NV and this is my journey in woodworking. I’m relatively new to woodworking, building my first project, a small cedar box garden for my daughter, in 2014. Since then I have found myself doing a project or two almost every weekend. I started this blog as a journal of sorts, to document my progress and growth as I learn and (hopefully) improve. With any luck, you can learn from my mistakes and maybe I can provide some inspiration for you to start your own journey as well. I’ll be posting updates of various projects, some I’ve already done, and others as I complete them, along with random musings. Wish me luck and good building!

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