Save Money And Build Quality Furniture - Anyone Can Do It And Save $100s

Save Money And Build Quality Furniture - Anyone Can Do It And Save $100s

I have a rental property. In the master bathroom the vanity has 2 sinks. At one time or another some water sat in the bottom of the cabinet. This caused the bottom of the cabinet to warp and the faceplate of the cabinet was all swollen up. The cabinet was made from particle board, or chipboard. When particle board gets wet, it expands and pretty much falls apart. The vanity is 54 inches wide.

I went to a local big-box hardware store. They had a decent 54 inch vanity for $300, with no top. The old top was like a cheap counter top. With a new top, the price was closer to $500. That was not an amount I was willing to spend. This is a lower priced rental and may times people don't take real good care of the property. Not as good as I'd like anyway.

I had a couple of old pieces of plywood laying around. I decided that I would try and reface the cabinet. I have seen the commercials on TV and it just didn't look that tough. Although the doors looked terrible too. They had a very swollen appearance on the face.

I measured the old faceplate. I measured the overall width and height. I also measured all of the openings, and the rails and stiles. In case you aren't sure, the rails are the horizontal pieces of wood, and the stiles are the vertical, or upright, pieces. I measured the length, width and thickness.

I then went back to my garage to see what sizes of plywood I had on hand. I found an old piece of 7/16 inch plywood that was rated as interior-exterior. I knew that would stand up to any water, much better than particle board.

I then sketched the faceplate using all the measurements that I had taken. I then made of list of all of the pieces that I needed. This was probably overkill, but I had never done anything like this before. And $500 was riding on the outcome, so I wanted to make sure.

I then cut the pieces to length, starting with the longest. I only had smaller pieces and I wanted to make sure that I had enough wood. I couldn't afford to rip off an entire side to one width, as that may interfere with the other pieces.

I then set may table saw fence to the first width that I needed. Even though I have an old Craftsman table saw, it did a great job. The cuts were all perfect. I cut all of one size, then I set the rip fence for the next size.

After I had all of my pieces I cut them to length. To do this I stacked them up. All of the pieces that were one length, I stacked on top of each other. This would make sure that they were the exact same length. I then laid all of the pieces on a large flat surface. My garage was freezing so I used my kitchen floor.

I then dry-fit all of the pieces to make sure the cuts were right. After the cuts were checked and the frame looked like a faceplate, I made small pencil marks on the surface where the pieces joined. I then took my biscuit jointer and cut pockets in all of the pieces where I made the pencil marks.

After I had the biscuit pockets cut, it was a simple matter to assemble the faceplate. I put wax paper under the clamped frame while the glue dried.

After the glue dried I pulled the old faceplate off. It was held by small nails. I then used my drill to drill a few small holes in the new frame. These holes allowed me to use finish nails without splitting the new frame. I also drilled holes for the door hinges. I figured that drilling for the doors would be easier while the frame was laying flat. I could then make sure that all of the doors aligned up, at the bottom.

With the frame off it was also a simple job to put a new piece of plywood down in the bottom of the cabinet. I then held the new frame in place and drove the small finish nails.

The doors looked bad and I didn't want to spend the hundreds of dollars to replace them either. I took my belt sander and tried to smooth the doors out.

I then threw a fresh coat of paint on all of the doors and the attached faceplate. It looked great. My wife was surprised at how good it looked. I used materials that I had on hand so it cost me virtually nothing. I can honestly say that I could not have done as good a job without my old table saw.

If you look at any recommendations for setting up a woodworking shop, the one thing that will become evident is that most of the professionals recommend a good table saw, as one of your first purchases. As you have read a quality table saw is one of the most important, and versatile, tools that you will ever own.

To setup your own woodworking shop visit http://www.protablesaw.com to see some of the best table saws around and whilst there check out the Porter Cable Table Saw range.

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