It has been a busy winter! I believe I mentioned my new source for industrial pallets in my last post called "Pallet Wood Fun." This time the objective was night stands!
Last summer we bought a pretty nice dresser for our bedroom from the ReStore by Habitat for Humanity. If you've never been to one, it's like a huge playground. They have leftover materials from builds, used furniture from donations, tools (my favorite), and many other things. This dresser that we bought is painted white and has legs and drawer faces that are proud of the front of the cabinet. It's a pretty nice design and functions fairly well. There are six drawers and Stephanie and I share it. The problem is that Stephanie filled one whole drawer with socks... she has sooo many socks! They are all sorts of fun colors and designs, and they seem to make her happy. So, with one drawer full of socks, it only leaves two drawers for the rest of her clothes. She mostly makes do, but we thought that having a little more space would be helpful. We thought nightstands would do the trick... except that apparently nightstands don't come in pairs? Ridiculous, I know, but we looked for a couple of months both new and used and either couldn't find a matching pair (used), or ones that fit our space (new). Night stands are apparently 30" to 36" wide these days for bedrooms that are larger than our living room. I know this because I've designed several of them (bedrooms, not night stands).
Anyway, I had just taken another load of industrial pallet wood home, so I thought I would endeavor to build a couple of nightstands that matched each other and our dresser. It was an interesting journey, let me tell you.
I started with 2x6 lumber which, for those of you who aren't initiated into the world of lumber, means that the dimensions of the wood are 1 1/2"x 5 1/2". I figured out that if I cut a length of it and then re-sawed it on my table saw, I could get (2) 5/8"x5" boards out of each piece. That meant that I could make the sides, back, and drawers out of the same material rather than buying plywood panels. I had a few challenges in that I don't have a planer or a jointer, so in the end, the panels I glued up are not perfect. I did have a large sanding block so, by hand, I was able to flatten each panel. I now have muscles in places that I didn't know I could have them...
The legs were easy to make, and the whole thing went together with pocket screws drilled into the inside of the panels. I inherited a small nail gun from a friend and was able to use that to put the drawers together.
The entire outside of the cabinet was painted white to match the dresser, and then it was done! Well, I still had to make another matching one for me, but one done and one to go! The second one was easier, or at least more streamlined. This time I cut everything I needed all at the same time and bought the right sized clamps to make the process a little easier.
Anyway, I think they came out pretty nice and we now have a matching bedroom set! In the end, I learned quite a bit, used wood that was destined for the landfill, and supported the local hardware store where we bought drawer pulls... and a lot of screws.
Awesome job!
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