I enjoy working with wood. It is always a good day when I get to make a pile of saw dust constructing a piece of furniture that will get years of use out it. Take a look around you, today if it is mass manufactured it is usually made out of plastic and metal. Mass wood manufactured furniture can be found, but the quality… is not the greatest.
You see, what I like about woodworking is that I can custom create something that fits my needs exactly. For example, I am in the process of building my daughter’s dresser bed. My wife & I looked at several offerings of storage beds at local furniture stores. We saw the same designs with ever so slight differences. However, there were two things that we really did not like about the designs
1) The beds were constructed with lower quality materials than what I would expect for the prices they were charging. The inside of the frame was constructed with OSB. Oriented strand board is less expensive than plywood and not as ridged.
2) Lots of wasted space in the design. The whole idea is to use the space under the bed as storage. So, why are they only using about 40% of the space and wasting the rest? In my design I wasted a whopping 1 1/2 inches, out of a frame that is forty inches wide. That is the total amount of space between the drawers from either side when they are closed.
My cost for the dresser bed is going to be about $300, total materials, stain and varnish. With my design I get the maximum use of the space they way I want it to be.
Ok, back to my list of the top three benefits of woodworking as a hobby.
1. Woodwork is a skill you can cultivate and develop. You can do personal works for your loved ones regardless of the occasion. With two daughters, I have been thinking about building a doll house for them. The challenge is… allocating the time to design and build it!
2. Build furniture and toys for friends as gifts. The best gift so far that I have built is a changing dresser and hutch for a close family friend when they were expecting their first child. To hide the fact that I was building it, I worked up a plan with the father’s parent that they where going to buy them a changing dresser. It worked like a charm. They had no idea until they ‘unpacked’ it at the baby shower. It is still in use in their four year old son’s room.
3. The enjoyment of making something from raw materials. Be it a piece of furniture, a toy or even a set of kitchen cabinets. The satisfaction that I built this and it is nice and works like it should.
With so many ideas in mind, you may find woodworking a fascinating hobby in the long run. Not only you will save resources and money but also you can enjoy quality time with your family.
