DIY Hell

What do you get when you don’t have plans, woodworking experience or proper tools, but you DO have an idea, wood and a long weekend? An ugly bench that serves a purpose but at the cost of my sanity.

I’ve been remodelling the entryway of our house and lack of storage is always an issue and everything is a compromise at this point. I decided I wanted to build a bench with storage for workclothes etc. I toyed around with a few designs and outside measurements and came up with a vague plan and winged it for the rest of it.

We hit the local all purpose store (?) to pick up cheap drawer slides and dowels and I was off to the races.

I first build a carcass from 25x45mm slats(?) by joining them with dowels because I obviously have stupid pride for not just using screws. Did you know it’s really fucking hard drilling straight holes and aligning them correctly to the next piece without a drill guide!? Also doing it freehand of course because I don’t have a work bench.

Because I’m insane and just trying to figure out a way to make things work, I marked the dowels with an expired YSL lipstick and then used that like a stamp to try and mark where to drill. I’m telling you not a single perfectly alinged corner exists in this bench, yet miraculously (and by brute force) the end result is not horribly wonky.

Did I mention there is not a single square ruler in the house…!? (Update: there is now, several.) I ended up using things like leftover blocks and the factory edge from pieces that I wasn’t using that I’d assume are somewhat straight.

Along with the dowel bullshit, my other big hurdle was trying to cut big pieces to have straight edges. My tools were a miter saw with the dullest harsh blade and a jigsaw. Both are fucking bullshit. Miter saw obviously cuts better but only up to 28cm wide piece and for the life of me I could not get an even cut with the jigsaw even when I made up a guide rail thingy for it. I tried evening out some of the edges by sanding but it is what it is.

I attached the sides with glue and a few finishing nails from the inside, and the top is just placed on with four blocks fitted against the inside corners of the carcass so if/when I re-do this I have more options to modify.

It took me three days in total to make this simple bench and clearly I stopped taking photos when I got to the drawer part of it. If I had proper tools this should have taken like three hours to make and it would have been way neater. My ”technique” got better by day three but the second drawer actually turned out way worse because it was incredibly damp in the house after several days of rain and the boards I was using got visibly wonky.

By the time I got to this point of the project I had placed an order for a table saw. Can’t fucking stand not having the proper tools I need for a project.

At this time the bench is at use but quite bare as I’m still waiting for my saw and I’m undecided on the front design. I might even change the position of the drawers but we’ll see. Definitely a face frame and drawer fronts are needed to hide my hideous uneven drawers, then some paint and a cushion to top it off. Or I might just hide this project somewhere in the basement and start all over with better understanding and tools.