I Made This Furniture

MacKenzie gave me a schematic drawing of a piece of furniture she wanted me to build. It was a wardrobe for Lucy with a clothes-hanging area and three cubbyholes for fabric boxes that hold other clothing. I said "Can't we buy that somewhere?" but she said no, we had to build it. So I bought some 1" x 12" pine boards and gradually got to work. While trying to do this, I had kitchen stuff and garden stuff and around-the-house stuff to do, so it was slow going.

I cut the wood into the proper size pieces using a circular saw. Then, using a pocket hole jig (I previously didn't know this existed. Note also that I bought the cheap version, not the Kreg version, even though it is like my name, and it seems to work well), I drilled holes in order to attach the four frame pieces, and then to attach the vertical center piece and the shelves. The pocket hole jig allows the screw heads to be on the inside of the item so they are less visible. A problem I had here is that some of my screws protruded ever so slightly through the wood pieces they were screwed into, so watch closely when you are putting in screws this way.

For the hanging rod, I bought a piece of rod (I forget what thickness) and cut it to length. I also bought the two pieces that you attach to the side walls to hold the rod.

After all that, I sanded, stained, and sealed the wood. I applied wood conditioner an hour before staining, and I used two coats of Minwax polyurethane. When staining and sealing, I did every accessible surface that was not facing downward, waited for it to dry, then flipped the whole item over and stained/sealed the remaining surfaces.

Here is the result.

Side note: Because I was staining this in the middle of the garage, I was parking the car outside for 3-4 nights. I was able to finish the project and put the vehicle back in the garage only hours before a hail storm came through. The storm caused my neighbor's pickup to acquire a few dents and a cracked windshield.