By: Stephenie Wolney
Woodworking, ,

How I Fell in Love With Woodworking

My love of woodworking began during my maternity leave with my first daughter. I was at home dealing with a fussy baby who needed a regimented routine and trying to get used to being a new mom. Being at home meant one thing for me: constantly critiquing every room in my house. I think we can all empathize with this now that we are in a global pandemic and the vast majority of us are sitting at home feeling the same way.

I decided I needed to change everything about my home, but the first project I was able to convince my husband to start was a built in bench seat complete with bookshelves under our front window. This was our first time really diving into the world of woodworking and to be honest, at first it was awful. My husband has a pretty good knowledge of power tools and had inherited quite a few tools from his father, so we had a good place to start, but we really didn’t get the complexities of planning and building a structure while caring for a baby.

Needless to say, we ran into some roadblocks. So we did what every other millennial would do and took to the internet. We stumbled upon many YouTube channels, blog posts, and websites, but the most helpful one we found was a YouTube channel called Woodworking For Mere Mortals. WWMM is a channel and website dedicated to teaching weekend woodworkers how to tackle both basic and intermediate projects. We got so many ideas from this channel and really improved our knowledge of how to build things, how to plan projects, and what kind of things we could do with basic tools.

This sparked something inside both of us. I have always been an avid crafter and DIYer, but my husband has never been interested in hot glue guns and pom poms. We aren’t professional wood workers or carpenters by any means, but we have learned so many tips and tricks along the way and have designed and edited so many projects. I feel like the knowledge I have gained could help people get started and maybe spark a few creative ideas leading to even better projects.

Here are a few of the projects we’ve completed since starting our woodworking journey:

This is what our front room storage bench looks like since it’s completion. We used Ikea cabinets as the base, with a frame above and below. The built ins are made from 3/4 ” plywood with trim around the outside to hide the plywood layers. It turned out pretty well, considering the trial and error we had to go through to get there. We love the end result.

Now we always consider building something over buying it, if not to save money then to create something custom and full of personality. To me there is nothing more satisfying than bringing something from my imagination into life. I have endless projects planned, from toys I want to create to organizational projects I want to tackle and decor items I want to create. Keep an eye out for all of our newest projects and tutorials. We are on a mission to DIY every corner of our home!