DIY SOFA MADE OUT OF 2X4'S + FREE PLANS | MODERN BUILDS

[Music] hey everybody my name is mike montgomery and in today's video i'd like to show you how i built this modern diy sofa completely out of two by fours plus i'm launching a new company called simple cushions but more about that later on in the video for now let's go ahead and get started on modern builds [Music] first project in the new shop i am so excited i started by going to my lumber pile and picking a few of my nicest looking two by fours these are going to be what i make the side panels for the sofa out of overall i needed to cut 14 pieces to 25 inches long and to do that i used my circular saw with a finish blade on it to prevent tear out and a 12 inch speed square to make sure my cuts were square in this shot you can see how these panels assembled by alternating the boards on their edges and on their face for a really cool texture and next i set my circular saw to 45 degrees and i cut a mitered frame that's going to go around that panel i would say i got a little bit lucky here and got this cut kind of perfect on the first try but i would err on sneaking up to the cut that way you get the best fit possible after i knew my top and bottom plate were a good fit i sanded down all of my individual pieces to remove these labels and just clean them up to 150 grit while they were still accessible my typical approach to a glue up is to use as much as possible that way i get a strong joint but for this project i tried my best to channel my inner chris salamoni from four eyes furniture and get as little squeeze out as possible all of the rounded edges on the two by fours and the inside corners on a glue up like this make cleaning up squeeze out really difficult i wanted to be sure that this whole panel was gluing up square as well as all of the individual 2x4 slats once i knew they were i tightened everything down in my maker brand t-bar clamps [Music] and before the glue was able to dry i grabbed a paper towel and a chisel to get any of the squeeze out that i could grab before it got a chance to harden and after one leg is complete all you need to do is repeat those steps for your second leg assembly and since these panels are going to be supporting the majority of the weight for this project i went ahead and let these glue ups dry overnight before i messed with them any further [Music] this next in grain glue up is probably going to be a little controversial because it doesn't take wood movement into consideration really at all end grain is really porous so here you see me applying a coat of glue and spreading it around with a silicone brush that way it can soak in as this first layer dries then after about 10 minutes i came back with a second coat of glue spread that around and then threw everything into the clamps and tightened it down so the big problem as you can see is i'm trapping these front boards which are mitered in between boards that are probably going to expand and contract with moisture and humidity now i am in the desert which doesn't fluctuate a ton i typically have about 10 to 20 humidity for the majority of the year but i'm curious to see how these boards react and what this sofa looks like in a couple years remember if there are any problems i can always come back and fix them that's the benefit of making stuff and just like with the squeeze out earlier anywhere i used wood filler in between my joints i used a chisel to clean up before it dried that gave me a lot less sanding to do later on overall i was super impressed with the quality of miters i was able to get out of the circular saw and the speed square is just a testament to making sure to take your time and measure twice [Music] alright so both of these panels came out looking amazing my miters are way cleaner than i expected going into this and keeping the glue squeezed out to a minimum is crucial now it's time to lay out where the cushions are going to go and i went ahead and cut out these templates that are the same size as the cushions i'm using so that we can mock everything up before we go for it i know the seat cushion is going somewhere about here and the back cushion will be right about there but i'm going to show you how to lay everything out using a 12 inch speed square to start i'm going to line up the corner of my speed square with the corner of the frame now i know that this edge is 90 degrees and i need to come 15 degrees off of 90 for the back rest so i'm going to make a mark right here at 75 then i'll take my straight edge and i'll connect the dot from this corner to the one that we just made with the speed square then i'll just use a 2x4 to make a line where they will be i like that there's a little bit sticking up past the box frame next we'll lay out lines for the seat cushion and i am looking for the intersection point five inches up from the bottom edge of the sofa with the inside of the line that we just made the second one that we drew using this intersection point and the speed square i'm going to find a five degree angle off of this point then we can extend that line over and quick note i accidentally diverted from my plans here and i lined up and marked this two by four beneath the line i just made and i should have done it above it but i do catch this mistake later on sweet that looks good and now we can line everything up and see how it looks wow you know what i like that a lot that looks really great now that we have reference lines for all of our seat angles we can make our custom brackets that are going to connect the horizontal 2x4 slats to these leg assemblies all of this information is going to be provided in the free plans linked in the description but it's also important to mark and cut all of your pieces to fit your project since two by fours aren't always the same size and anytime i needed to make duplicate pieces i used the piece i just cut to mark and cut the second even though i'm lining up this seat bracket an inch and a half too low like i mentioned earlier the geometry and the shape is still the same so we're all good aside from the seat and back angle i was just kind of winging it with these brackets just doing lines that looked good and cutting them out by hand [Applause] and whenever you do this make sure you keep the bed of your circular saw flat against the face of your 2x4 that way you have a good 90 degree cut and right now i'd like to take a quick second to thank the sponsor of today's video squarespace if you need a website an online store or just a domain squarespace is your one-stop shop and the best part is you need zero website building experience squarespace's built-in designer templates look great right out of the box if you can drag and drop files and edit text blocks you are well on your way to a custom website squarespace templates are designed to look great on desktop tablet and mobile no matter where your customers find you whether you're an artist that needs to show their portfolio a business that needs to attract customers or schedule appointments or an online store with awesome features like unlimited products so if you're interested in learning more make sure and go to squarespace.com modernbuilds the link is in my description there you can build out your entire squarespace site without entering any of your credit card info and then when it's time to make your site live make sure and use the code modern builds for 10 off your first site store or domain thanks to squarespace for sponsoring today's episode now back to the build i'm probably not going to show this a lot in the future but i've been trying to build what i think is a good habit of sanding a lot of my pieces as i go rather than saving a lot of that inconvenient stuff for later so you already know that i'm putting this seat bracket in an inch and a half too low but it wasn't until now looking at the seat cushions that i realized it myself i could tell that the seat back wasn't extending past the frame as far as i wanted so i scooted that bracket up to the first line that i drew and fastened it down [Music] perfect all right let's get these two by fours cut [Music] next we're going to need to double check the cushions for size and these are not a sponsored product i'm happy to announce that i am launching a cushion company alongside one of my best friends ben ueda called simple cushions of course we've had samples and prototypes of the cushions for a while but this set came from the actual inventory we'll be selling so i wanted to make sure they were a true 72 together we've made indoor cushions built for diy sofas we've got multiple sizes and covers on our site which i'll leave linked below i'm going to be using the slims in copper tan vegan leather so enough simple cushion talk after i double checked all of my measurements i could grab my not so pretty two by fours and start cutting those down to size since the face of these aren't showing and only a couple edges are only going to be visible i didn't worry about getting good faced two by fours but i did want to make sure that they were straight i also used an eighth inch bit to pre-drill all of my holes before attaching these slats to the brackets as i went i spent a lot of time double checking that everything was square between my slats and all of my leg assemblies i put in one screw on each side of my two by fours and then would go to the opposite end and double check that nothing shifted on me and then tighten everything down for good if weight or strength is a concern with your sofa you could always add a bead of glue to each of the matching edges of these two by fours before screwing them down but since i was in the prototyping and design phase of this project i didn't know if i was going to have to remove any boards so i did not glue them down no problem though this platform was super strong my camera battery died installing these last slats so i had to photoshop these last couple of boards in but once they were i was able to grab my cushions and test the fit and it was super pro let's go gosh bear with me here on the uneven floor but i've got one last idea that i want to do for this sofa i took the time to cut these plugs with a hole saw that i'm thinking of using for legs i think raising this sofa a little bit will make it more comfortable plus having round legs to create a floating look is really going to take this all 2x4 sofa project over the top and for transparency's sake i want to highlight that while i was doing this the motor on my heart drill burnt out on me now this is the first time i've had a problem with a heart tool but since they've sponsored content in the past and i've recommended them i should let you guys know i don't know if it's a defect in the product or if it took a tumble during this whole shed to workshop build but it is what it is moving on so let's see which size leg looks best remember i'm going to clean all of these up much better once i decide what the actual size is but this is just a reference so you guys can see what i did okay so of the four i like the larger two dowels and out of those two i like the smaller one i think it helps contribute to the floating effect a little bit more so next i'm gonna drill in sand four matching plugs out of a single 2x4 [Music] so today i'm excited because plug phones is releasing a new product and i am going to be testing it out this is plug phone's new free reign model with an upgraded tear resistant tough cord plug phones are osha compliant hearing protection and ear buds in one with up to 12 hours of battery life so to learn more or pick up some plug phones for yourself make sure and go to plug phones.com and always use the code modern builds for 15 off big thanks to you all and big thanks to plug phones now back to the build the diameter of my legs were about two and a quarter inches after i sanded them down so i measured down three and three eighths of an inch pre-drilled that hole on the bottom plate and screwed my leg in like earlier i was surprised to see how snug this was so i just screwed the rest of my feet in and i skipped the glue now we can sand everything with 220 grit and throw on some water-based polyurethane and this seems like the right video to feature it on this is actually a sample of maker brand simple finish water-based that we're coming out with hopefully later this year it does a good job of keeping that natural wood tone without yellowing it too much and once i applied two coats this sofa was done i am really happy with how this project came out first of all i had great two by fours to choose from they were really straight and had nice color and grain beyond that i would say i did a great job with my circular saw joinery i didn't have to use too much wood filler to get a really really clean look overall the sofa is really comfortable if you wanted to lounge back a little bit more you can make the seat bracket 10 degrees just like the seat back and i've got to say the color of this vegan leather on the simple cushions couldn't be better [Music] all right well thanks a ton for watching i really appreciate it i couldn't be more excited or proud to finally launch this cushion company we've been working on everything for a really long time so it's cool to see it come to fruition if you're interested in learning more links will be down in the description i don't want to be too salesy here we're just doing our best to create an awesome product at the most affordable price that we can plus we've got plans on the site for this all 2x4 sofa and the all plywood sofa that bin you way to build i always appreciate it big time if you can click that like button it just lets youtube know that this is a good video and to suggest it to other people aside from that click subscribe and the notification bell and we will see you next time on modern builds bye [Music] boom everybody

Channel: Modern Builds

Views: 202,079

Rating: 4.9479809 out of 5

Keywords: modernbuilds, modern builds, diy, how to, do it yourself, SOFA, COUCH, CHAIR, HOW TO BUILD A COUCH, SECTIONAL, DIYCOUCH, DIY SOFA, HOW TO BUILD A SOFA, MODERN, MID CENTURY, PLYWOOD, 2X4, LIMITED TOOLS, AFFORDABLE, MIKE MONTGOMERY

Id: TY6ZrTkYWaA

Length: 14min 17sec (857 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 14 2021