How I make my custom wood bases // furniture flipping // furniture makeover

[Music] this is my wife andrea and as long as i've known her she's had this knack for taking old outdated things and turning them into something beautiful so after seeing this about a thousand times i took it upon myself to make her a channel because she wouldn't do it herself and so now i'm super excited to share with you the creative adventures of my diy wife today we're doing a highly requested tutorial a lot of you have been asking how i make my custom wood bases and so today i'm going to go into a little bit more detail on just how exactly i do that these bases are an andrea original design and i think it's one of the things that's allowed us to elevate our pieces and sell them for a lot more than the average dresser yeah i first had this idea when i had a customer looking for a taller dresser than what she could find and so it got me thinking how can we add height to this and then i remembered some other pieces that i've built that had this exact same base on it and thought i can just add that to this dresser and it turned out so good that we've been redoing that ever since and it's not that we do it with every dresser but for certain pieces it really adds a lot but we don't really have a name for it so if you have a great name for this kind of base then go ahead and leave that in the comments below so with that let's go ahead and jump into this tutorial and get started the first step is measuring the base of your dresser i start by measuring the length and the width of the dresser and then i like to make my actual base about a quarter inch smaller than the base of the dresser and so i'll subtract a quarter inch from those final measurements to cut the side pieces i need to account for the legs and each of those is one and a half inches wide so all i do is subtract three inches from my length and width i will go ahead and say i prefer to use red oak and i use one by threes for my size and two by twos for my legs red oak is a hardwood and it's honestly just going to be stronger and more durable than the softer woods you can use a softer wood like pine but you do risk the pocket holes cracking and ripping if you slide a heavy piece of furniture across carpet or something like that and so i like to stick with a more durable hardwood next i cut the angles for the legs now there are other ways to do this but i'm just showing you how i do it but please be careful and do not cut your fingers off doing this the two by twos i buy for the legs come in three feet lengths and so i cut those angles first so that i can have a long board to hold on to since i can't cut less than a 45 degree angle on my miter saw i hold my 2x2 out at an angle like this and just make sure that the end is propped up at the right height so i can securely hold it in place i use a pencil and just mark on my miter saw where the board was so that i can easily line up the board for the next legs and i actually only cut the angles on the front two legs because you can't really see the back legs and it's just a little bit safer cutting it off of each length of that two by two so i have a really long board to hold on to next i cut the length of each leg to five and a half inches the next step in the process is to use my kreg jig to drill pocket holes to be able to put everything together in this video i'm using the less expensive r3 junior pocket hole system i've used it for years and it is a great starter piece if you're not planning on using this all the time it's affordable it works just as good as the other ones but i've recently upgraded to the k4 pocket hole system and it is so much easier to use if you're going to be making tons of pocket holes i highly recommend just getting this one to start out i do one pair of pocket holes on the end of each of my side boards and these will attach to the legs when i assemble it next i'll make the pocket holes that i'll use to attach the base to the dresser for the long board i do two pairs on each end close to the legs and then three more pairs evenly spaced down the length of the board for the short sides i just put a pair on each end close to the legs and that is plenty next i give everything a quick sand with my orbital sander and 220 grit sandpaper [Applause] to assemble everything i use the one and a quarter inch kreg jig screws and you want to make sure and get the fine thread that is for hardwood when you're using red oak or you risk splitting the wood i'll use a little bit of wood glue when i attach the side and front boards to the legs but i actually recommend not using glue when you attach the base to the dresser for easy removal if you ever need to get it off of there next i stain everything and when i use red oak i don't actually use a wood conditioner because it just takes stains so well and i honestly don't need it i've mentioned before that i like to use minwax's golden oak if i want a lighter stain or provincial for a darker but there are so many good options out there and you can get the small size cans at home depot and lowe's that are great if you're just doing a project or two after the stain dries i like to use minwax's wipe-on polyurethane for a nice durable finish a lot of the dressers i find will already have a base attached and most of these can actually just be removed by removing a few screws [Music] some require a little more work and i've had to pull out either my jigsaw or circular saw to remove them and then sometimes i find a piece with a nice square base and i leave it on because i like the look of the extra height so after i've removed the old base and my new base is all assembled and dried it's time to attach it to the dresser this is easiest with a helping hand to help you get that first screw started or you can use a clamp to hold your base in place i use those same one and a quarter inch crank jig screws and i'm careful not to over tighten because i do not want to risk splitting that wood so that's it for how to construct this space but i think a lot of people might be asking how much does it cost to build this base wood costs are going to vary slightly depending on where you live but where we are down in central texas one base usually costs me about thirty dollars plus about another ten dollars for your screws and stain but those can last you for several projects so it has a small cost to it it definitely has a decent bit of work to it but obviously the end product looks fantastic and i really think it raises the dresser to another level and allows it to be sold oftentimes for a much higher price so there you have it our most requested tutorial to date i hope it was helpful and that you're now able to go and add your own custom wood bases to your pieces if you're interested in a product list we're including that in the description of this video and also here at the end of the video we want to say that andrea has a painting process pdf so if you want to get the scoop on her entire furniture painting process and you can download that for free when you become an email subscriber so this has been dean and andrea thanks for hanging out with us today and we'll have another diy video coming your way very soon

Channel: DIY Wife

Views: 192,369

Keywords: diy furniture flip, furniture flip, furniture flipping for profit, furniture flipping before and after, mid century modern furniture, how to makeover mid century modern furniture, high end furniture makeover, side hustle, side hustle 2021, furniture flipping, trash to treasure furniture flip, thrift flip, Facebook marketplace furniture flip, furniture painting, diy wife, upcycled furniture, painted furniture, furniture flipping tips, furniture restoration, furniture makeover

Id: fFTS0aT_978

Length: 7min 2sec (422 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 22 2021