Build Your
Own Cheap Furniture
Handmade cheap furniture has its own kind of beauty. Often made by people with small budgets, this furniture can be a creative solution that may help define the maker's personal style. Utilize parts of other furniture, found objects, natural elements, scrap lumber, storage containers and thrift store finds to create cheap furniture.
Instructions
1. Repurpose found objects into pieces for your home. Remove the insides of an old upright piano to make a bar by changing the front hinge to open down and adding a shelf inside.
2. Dismantle an old stereo cabinet to create linen storage or an entry table. Add storage baskets in the area previously holding the speakers, or leave that area open and paint it an interesting color.
3. Use the spool that the TV cable people left in the attic to make an upholstered ottoman. Staple a pillow around the edges of the flat top. Use a knife to make a 2-by-2-inch, X-shaped hole in the center of the pillow over the corresponding hole in the spool. Use a full skirt to upholster the spool. Staple the waistband of the skirt under the bottom of the spool. Pull all of the fabric up, and stuff it through the hole in the pillow top and the spool. Smooth and straighten the fabric. Add four furniture wheels to the bottom for a perfect dressing table chair.
4. Shorten the legs of a 30-inch wooden dining room table to make a coffee table that is 18 inches high. Measure each leg carefully before cutting with a handsaw.
5. Remove the drawers and runners from an old dresser, paint the inside, and call it a bookcase or stereo cabinet. Hang the drawers on the wall with L brackets to create display areas that will coordinate with the new cabinet.
6. Cut a farmhouse table to a width that works for your space. Re-attach the legs. Finish the edges, and add a drawer or two to create a kitchen island.
7. Turn a discarded, free-standing entertainment center into a modern armoire by adding bifold doors. Attach two full-size stretched artist canvases with hinges to create doors for the cabinet. Add a full-extension, slide-out shelf that sits 28 inches from the floor, and you have created a computer desk area.
8. Cut an 18-inch section of tree trunk, upholster the top, and you have a chair unlike any other. Use tree branches for drapery poles by hanging hooks and fabric from the branch. Screw tree branch parts to the bathroom wall to hang towels. Finish these natural projects with clear spray acrylic paint.
9. Make yourself a faux four-poster bed using carpet and vinyl rolls from the carpet store. Ask the carpet store staff for these cardboard rolls, which are 8 feet long, 8 inches in diameter and very sturdy. Cover the rolls with fabric, wallpaper or paint, and attach to the bed frame or the wall with L brackets.
10. Make a queen-size platform bed with two 30-inch interior doors. Bind them together with carpenter's glue and flat metal brackets. Set the doors on top of storage bins. Add a bedskirt to cover the bins, and place a queen-size mattress on top.
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