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Imagine a friend or relative visiting you at your home, settling into a chair or sofa in the living room and then eagerly asking you where you got that piece of furniture from. Then, imagine being able to tell them that you didn’t buy it from a shop but instead made it entirely yourself.
However, it’s important to emphasise that furniture-making, while immensely rewarding in many instances, isn’t quite for everyone. So, what questions should you answer to judge your own aptitude for it?
Are you the patient type?
As you embark on a furniture-building project, you should keep in mind that the planning stage could actually take longer than the process of physically assembling the furniture, as TheDIYPlan warns.
Therefore, if you usually want quick results, then making your own furniture might not quite be your kind of thing – especially if you tend to get frustrated easily as well. Frustration could set in too readily if you attempt to rush making new furniture – so, you’d have to resist the temptation to cut corners.
Are you prone to frustration?
If so, you could become even more so if you go down the furniture-building route, as you would probably be doing it on your own. While you could find it particularly difficult to keep a lid on your emotions if you are a beginner furniture-maker, even advanced builders and woodworkers aren’t entirely immune.
This all basically means that, if you are still willing to brave the challenge of furniture-making, you should mentally prepare yourself for stumbling blocks.
Are you good at budgeting?
If you are the kind of person who often looks at their receipt after a weekly shopping trip only to think “I hadn’t realised I had spent quite that much”, you should probably work on your budgeting skills. That would be an especially crucial point if you are intent on making your own furniture.
You could end up needing many different tools and materials for the job – but it’s too easy to overspend if you don’t plan ahead by distinguishing between must-have and nice-to-have supplies.
In looking closely at what supplies you already have at hand, you might realise that these alone would suffice. Nonetheless, this is likelier to happen with a relatively small and simple project; if it’s more advanced, the financial outlay necessary on your part could be somewhat larger.
Do you know exactly what supplies you need?
Of course, what supplies you do need will depend on what you want to make and from what material(s). Wood is often strongly favoured on account of its versatility. The urdesign website lists various tools you would need in order to create wooden furniture pieces.
Key to the beauty of making your own furniture – if you are the right kind of person for it – is being able to tailor it to your specific requirements and preferences. For example, while you might be happy to make a table largely out of wood, you could still affix metal table legs as a custom flourish.