Look what I made!

Buying furniture can be very frustrating. Solid wood stuff is insanely expensive, stuff in my price range is made of MDF or other pretend wood substances, and its hard to get the right combo of style and finish. To answer this dilemma, Ana White at Knock-Off Wood has made designs for many of my favorites from Pottery Barn, C&B and others, and they are set out so a carpentry newbie such as myself can figure them out! My first attempt was the Tryde side table, and I think it was a success!

There were a few issues (such as cutting a 4x4 with a jigsaw), but overall I'm happy with my first attempt at carpentry. There are several other projects I want to do, but I think we'll invest in a table saw first, and then I'll do something more beginner-intermediate (I'm thinking an open back bookcase), so we shall see.

I started with this.

And several hours and 1.5 cans of green spray paint later, we have this!

Much better!! And the plants just got separated out from a monster that was taking over our window seat. Anyone have any idea what kind of plant those are? A friend gave one to me a while ago, and you just break off parts, stick them in the dirt and they'll start growing. The thing I like best about them? I haven't been able to kill it yet!!