Is Do It Yourself The Answer To Your Expensive Bedroom Furniture Problems?
Buying quality bedroom furniture is expensive. Even bargain dorm room furniture isn’t exactly cheap…not unless you consider those flimsy made-in-China plastic drawers some college students use in their dorm rooms for furniture. In theory, you can get significant savings by buying everything you need in one bundle. In practice, many packages come with foreign parts. To add insult to injury, the parts you want (for example, shelves and storage chests) don’t come included and you have to buy these extras at their full prices. Fortunately, for those with patience, there are some solutions.
The default option for most furniture shoppers is to buy online or wait for a warehouse or clearance sale. After all, everyone knows that they can get huge discounts this way. Seeing 30% to 50% off the list price is common. Select pieces can even get 70% or 80% off at certain times — for example, when the retailer is trying to clear out their latest showroom display piece from a discontinued furniture set so they can bring back the fashion. of the next season.
But what if you can’t afford to wait? What if you need it within the week (or month)? One possibility is to build it yourself. You say you have no skill for carpentry or carpentry? Nonsense! Most people have the ability to at least hammer two pieces of wood together. In its crudest form, that’s all it takes to build the simplest of pieces of furniture. Buy some square-edged wood planks (and plywood boards) and whatever dimensions you like, glue them together with wood glue to the ends to make the initial joint, then hammer in some long, narrow nails (carefully) to reinforce the joint. . Of course, there are limits to what you can build this way, but a simple shelf or bookcase is well within the limitations of this technique. If your rack needs to carry heavier things, you may need to hammer a few extra blocks of wood around the joints to further reinforce them. And don’t forget to paint your shelf; otherwise it will look very ugly.
But what if you need to build something a little more complicated? Frankly, if you don’t have the money, you have no right to be picky. But let’s ignore all that. One option is to look for furniture plans. Visit your local library and ask the librarian for help. They must have something in the DIY, woodworking, carpentry, or furniture sections of their catalog. Photocopy the plan you want for reference, then go to your local sawmill or wood shop and buy the lumber you need. The best wood to use is a soft wood like beech or pine. Oak is expensive and too difficult to work for most beginners. In either case, pay a small fee to have the wood cut to the sizes you need. You’ll probably need to drill a few holes, so go begging or borrow a power drill from your friends or neighbors. After that, it’s just a matter of following the plans to assemble the separate pieces of wood into the bedroom furniture you want.
The last step is to “finish” the furniture you just built. Step number one is to smooth all surfaces with sandpaper. Doing this by hand is extremely tedious and takes quite a bit of time. So borrow a power tool with a sanding attachment from someone and use it to speed up the task. The next step is simple: just paint it and you’re done. While there are more sophisticated and higher quality finishing steps for DIY projects, let’s leave those to the enthusiasts.
The first time you build a bookcase (let’s say for your child’s bedroom), it will probably take all weekend (not including the time you have to wait for the paint to dry). You may have to look in the yellow pages to find someone who will sell you the lumber. You may need an hour or two to call your neighbors for tools you don’t have. But think about the advantages: The real solid wood you use is almost always stronger than the fiberboard from which most modern furniture is made, and it saves a lot of money. On top of that, your next project will go much faster, and the next one even faster.
Overall, for those with the right inclinations, building your own freestanding bedroom furniture provides personal satisfaction, quick gratification, and considerable cost savings. While DIY isn’t for everyone, if you’re on a tight budget and need a particular piece of furniture quickly, you’ll surely want to consider it.