Front porch benches!

When we moved, we doubled our space internally, but we also upgraded to a full acre. This meant a ton more work for yours truly, but also meant some neat projects. I now had a front porch surrounding this fabulous yellow door. 

Look at that beauty! Yellow door surrounded by white and dark grey (taken during construction). We wanted to frame the door with some tall planters and benches with pops of color. I wanted to make sure that the benches had a little character. 

I found these plans from Ana White and customized them to fit our space. I needed two benches-- one two panels wide and another three panels. For this project I used my favorite tools. 

I primed the wood with white oil based primer. 

Look at how that pretty blue pops against the stone and the wood grain! 

Turn some Lockers into a "Mudroom" in your Garage!

Well, many of you know the family moved into a brand new (read: empty) house over the past year. I'll be posting some of the many projects that we completed as we decided what we wanted to do with our blank canvas. 

Today we have this nice garage. Nice and bare. Great for piles of stuff. 

I found these lockers at a surplus sale. I love the idea of using old school stuff as decor--I am a teacher after all.

Here is what we started with: 

Check out the pile of stuff. We tend to drop stuff in this area in order to keep mess out of the house. 

I started by finding the height I liked best. Notice that ugly yellow and blue? We'll need to take care of that. I built a simple 2x4 frame for the base. You'll notice in this picture the frame is a bit too long-- this was one of my first projects and I miscalculated the dimensions. One other thing of note is that the slant at the top wouldn't allow for any storage up high. I really wanted some way to store as much as possible in this space so I had to figure out how to manage that. 

Here is a shot of the side of the locker. They were taken apart to best fit my space (originally were in sets of five. This meant that I lost some of the metal sides. I ended up purchasing 1/4 plywood and cutting to size to fill the sides. 

I began experimenting with ways to get storage up top. I decided I was going to wall mount a 2x4 to the wall above the top peak of the lockers and then use the down side as support for a shelf. 

The 1/4 plywood also acted as support. Here you can see the side with the plywood support. I simply screwed self driving screws into the supports of the lockers. 

We also wanted a place to sit while taking boots off or (as was the case today) putting snow gear on. I framed the shelf for the bench out of 2x4 and attached with 3" wood screws into studs. I then attached from inside of the lockers (making sure it was level each direction). You can also see the color we chose finally starting to look ok. It took nine bottles of spray paint to get the finish and color consistent. I need a paint gun. 

The bench with scrap wood pieces. The gaps are OK as I decided it would look good to trim the whole thing out with white MDF. 

A picture from a little farther away and we painted the way behind. I just used primer for all of the white paint. 

The lockers ended up looking great and are a great place for us to drop our stuff on the way in. I stained the bench top to match our floors and found some carpet squares (also at surplus) to give it a little more of a nice feel on those toes! 

Our MUST HAVE Tools

Here is an old post from our former blog! 


Our designs are customized versions of the furniture and projects on AnaWhite.com (sometimes Shanty2Chic.com collaborates as well) please visit her site, it is a GREAT resource!

Building tables is a fun exercise in patience. When you think you finally have your tools and project figured out, you find something that makes your job so much easier. Sigh... if only I had unlimited funds!

The first thing you must do, is pick great lumber. I get mine locally and have come to understand that good wood is hard to come by (here comes the laugh track). First and foremost, pick boards that are straight and flat! Check them at the store by eye and by laying them on the ground. If they rock, put them back!

We believe that choosing your tools should be based first on utility (no single use tools for us) and second on adaptibility (we favor Ryobi since they have so many affordable tools). BUT I'll never turn down a great deal on a used tool if it is in great condition (example-- I just bought this Ridgid reciprocating saw for $40!).

The links below are Amazon Affiliate links-- if you purchase through the links, we get a small percentage that helps us keep writing and creating for you!

Without further ado, here are our MUST HAVE tools:

Kreg HD Jig

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Some people prefer the smaller alternative Kreg Jigs (truth be told, we purchased the R3 Mini Jig first) but for our work with large scale wood-- nothing beats the HD. We've found that anthing 2x or larger (2x2, 2x4, 4x4, etc.) the HD gives us a solid contact and really helps pull the wood together. A word of caution though: the screws are expensive and strong. I've pulled 2x10 lumber apart (see above for warping comment) with these screws. The drill bit gets quite dull over time since it is drilling such large holes. Plan to buy a new one by your fourth project.

I buy the screws in packs of 125 from Amazon and always keep two packs on hand. I use about 2/3 of the pack per table.

Alternative: I've used the Kreg R3 for many tables and find it works just fine for 2x+ lumber. The joints and screws aren't as strong though. The R3 is smaller and easier to get into smaller spaces. Consider the HD an upgrade!

Amazon links:

Kreg HD Jig

Kreg R3

Kreg HD Screws (125)

Ryobi Impact Driver*

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I had no idea how much I needed this in my life. For my first 20 projects I used a nice Dewalt drill (see below) to drive all of my screws. The drill would torque my wrist on tough screws and kill my shoulders with the force I had to give to each drive. No more! I got this Ryobi impact driver and worked on two tables and benches with it last weekend. I couldn't believe the difference it made. No wrist torque or shoulder fatigue! It is heavier than my drill, but I'm happy to report that the weight difference didn't make me as tired as needing to push on the drill to drive the screws. Full thumbs up!

*I bought the older one since it also came with two batteries, the difference in the two is a little torque and led lights--those weren't important to me.

Amazon link:

Ryobi Impact Driver

Dewalt Drill

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Ok-- sorry Ryobi. I have the Ryobi Drill/Driver and it does not come close to my old tried and true Dewalt for power. This is what I use to drill my Kreg HD pocket holes on all of my table projects. No, I haven't upgraded my Dewalt to 20v or lithium yet. I need to, but I have other tools I want to purchase!

Amazon link:

Dewalt 18v Drill and Driver

Ryobi Cordless Sander

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Believe it or not, I found this beauty for $5 at Goodwill (not my sander in the picture, thanks Google!). I use this to finish all of my products. I start with 80 grit sand paper and work my way up to 220 for the final sanding. I prefer 3M sandpaper.

Amazon links:

Ryobi Cordless Sander

80 Grit Sandpaper

120 Grit Sandpaper

220 Grit Sandpaper

Diablo Saw Blades

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I'm actually due for an upgrade on my miter saw. I'd like a pull through Dewalt (I've heard great things about their accuracy) but I'm currently using a Black and Decker 10" miter saw. The Diablo blades in the "ultra finish" take my so-so saw into the pretty-good range. I have used these blades from Dewalt in the past and have had good luck, but the finish of the blade requires a little more sanding. Less sanding=winning.

I also use their blades on my circular saw.

Amazon links (make sure the sizes will fit your saw!):

7 1/4 inch Circular saw blade

10 inch Ultra Finish

Dewalt two-pak 10 inch

Kreg LARGE Clamp

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I might have framed this post as the best put first and last. This is the LARGE version of the popular Kreg clamp. I love this because I work with a lot of 2x+ lumber (any 2x and up!) with my furniture. This is a secure clamp and works with one hand--sometimes I get hulk strength when tightening and have to use two hands though. Sure secure and works well with both Kreg jigs I have. Love this clamp. You can never have enough clamps!

Before I used this clamp, I used something like this. I didn't like it as much, but I didn't know any better until I tried the Kreg clamp.

Amazon links:

Kreg LARGE clamp

Irwin clamp