Tuesday, October 18

Day 18 - Build it!

Do you ever look through Pottery Barn catalogs and think to yourself "I really wish I could afford a coffee table/bed/desk/whatever like that!" Well, the good news is, you totally can - by building it yourself! And a bonus is how proud you will be of yourself when your friends visit and ooooo and aaahhh over what you've made. :)


If you want to build your own furniture, the BEST place to start is Ana White's website. She builds furniture and shares her plans online for FREE! She'll tell you what to buy and gives step by step instructions for assembly and finishing. I'm a big fan, in case you couldn't tell. We've already used a few of her plans to build things for our home:

Pottery Barn's Bailey Console Table is on sale for $699....

We built Ana White's Balin Console Table for about $70 and saved about $630!

This West Elm Outdoor Sectional would have cost us $1,195....

Instead we built Ana White's Outdoor Sectional for about $130 and saved $1,065. Seriously?!?

This storage bed from PB Teen sells for $1599....

We're currently working on Ana White's Hailey Storage Bed (SURPRISE!) for our guest room and have spent about $160 and saved $1,439!

Pottery Barn's Rhys Coffee Table is on sale for $599....

So we followed Ana White's building techniques to create our own plans for a knock-off and built it for about $60, saving $540!

You can find plans for anything you want/need on Ana's site, from dining tables to nightstands to children's furniture. I've bookmarked quite a few things I still want to tackle for spaces all over our home. Besides saving THOUSANDS of dollars, building your own furniture is great because you can adjust it to fit your needs perfectly! You can change things like the size, number of drawers, and color to fit your the style and spaces of your home. Make it your way and make it beautiful!

How about you? Have you ever saved tons of money by building your own furniture? Or built something to perfectly fit an awkward space in your home?

8 comments:

  1. Very impressive! Have you sold any furniture? You could probably make quite a bit of money.

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  2. Oh. My. Heavens -- this is beautiful! I'm not a builder. My brain doesn't even think this way. Sure wish it did!!!

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  3. Nathan - I haven't sold any, but I would love too! :)

    Alene, I wasn't a builder either. And now that I've done it I truly believe anyone can! If it's something you want to try you should go for it!

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  4. Oh, I've wanted to build the Hyde Coffee Table for so long.

    It looks simple...

    http://www.potterybarn.com/products/hyde-coffee-table/

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  5. Love it! I actually have been wanting the matching console table. And Ana already has plans made for both! Here is the link to the coffee table:
    http://ana-white.com/content/tryde-coffee-table

    You should go for it!

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  6. Ana really rocks doesn't she? Love your blog as well, happily distracted for half the evening!

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    1. She definitely does! She's one of my favorites. :) So glad you are enjoying my blog too, thanks for the sweet comment! :)

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  7. Hi Georgia,
    I really like your innovative ideas for living room decor. Ana White's Outdoor Sectional is also good to have, I also want to place something like it, at the entranceway but after shifting to a big home as my apartment has no place for it. I was working with my kitchen storage area and was not able to find a better solution as it is so small. But I took help from an agency for Kitchen Renovations in Calgary and they not only solved my problem but provided a complete make-over for my kitchen. I'll definitely try some of your DIY too. Thanks for tons of innovative ideas you share in your posts. Keep sharing!

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