If you’re reading this, you must be planning to build some new furniture or redo your patio, poolside, or garden area. Why not try a unique look and go with a tiki bar, tiki huts, or just a patio table with tiki bar stools? You don’t have to live in Florida or Hawaii to make these!
Once you’ve decided you are ready to build, you need to find specific wood furniture plans with a tiki theme. There are some ready-made, downloadable woodworking plans available that are suitable for any do-it-yourselfer. You can get email and phone support for your project, too, if you go with Tiki Kev (phone support now for a limited time only). Even a do-it-yourselfer can benefit from a little tech support since most of us have never made a tiki thatch roof before. This is a critical component, of course, and no tiki bar or tiki hut is complete without one!
The tiki bar plans from Tiki Kev will help you make a gorgeous and solid tiki bar that will last for years. It will be 4′ x 8′ and weigh around 1200 pounds when complete, so this is not a portable bar. Being of such solid construction is how it weathers high winds and other forces of nature! This is a great type of project because after you’re done, you’ve got a nice shady place to relax. If you don’t have palm fronds in your area, you can also get those from Tiki Kev. One ebook includes the tiki bar plans and another has tiki furniture plans for bar stools and tables that you can add so you’ll have a matching place to sit. Once all this construction is finished, there are still some final finishing touches you can add to enhance its appearance. A neon tiki bar sign or a tiki torch looks great, or you can carve a cool tiki totem for your next project.
If a tiki bar is a more complex project than you’d like to tackle, or you just want some shade without a bar, then you can make a tiki hut instead. You also could start with tables and tiki bar stools for your patio and then build the bar later. Tiki Kev’s woodworking plans are flexible and ebooks for the tiki bar, tiki huts, and tiki furniture can be purchased either separately or as a group.
“Canned” wooden furniture plans are great because they help you to get started quickly and work efficiently, but what if you want to customize them to add your own personal stamp to your project? What kinds of things can you do without having to completely remodel the project plans? There are lots of options!
Choosing a different finish for a woodcraft is one obvious way to customize it. Perhaps you think it would look nicer with a darker stain-it is your wood project, after all, so go ahead. Or, you may decide to change the paint scheme, if you have one. Shelia McGraw wrote a very nice book about painting and decorating furniture (Painting and Decorating Furniture, 1997). I believe it is out of print, but some copies are still available through sellers at Amazon. This is also a handy reference if you want to refurbish older furniture, for instance if you are redecorating a room in your house. She has tips for dealing with fabric cover furniture and refurbishing cushions as well.
You can tweak the final appearance of your wood crafts before you even cut anything for your new project just by your choice of wood. Bubinga, oak, maple, black walnut, and cherry woods all have distinct natural colors that you can use to advantage. You don’t have to use the same type of wood for each part in a project; you can mix woods to create attractive color patterns in your work without ever staining or painting. For example, you might make a drawer handle piece from bubinga while the drawer face is hard maple. Or, you could use bubinga drawers for your chest plans while the rest is maple.
Individual parts can sometimes be changed to your liking without requiring you to completely redesign the woodworking plans. For instance, you might change the drawer handles in your platform bed plans. Other times, you want to add new parts to the wood projects. You can always customize any toybox plans by cutting wood in the shapes of alphabet letters and fixing these to the outside of the box. You could also paint an image of Woody Pride, the cowboy from the movie Toy Story, or another favorite character from a woodcraft paint pattern if you like.
From start to finish, there are always plenty of things you can do to add a personal touch to your “canned” wood furniture plans!
Premade woodworking plans come in two general types: nondownloadable and downloadable. Nondownloadable plans are typical for craft or wooden toy plans. These are often provided as full-size patterns that you would lay onto the wood directly to mark where to cut or paint. Downloadable files are more common for wood furniture plans including tiki furniture and these files are usually in PDF format. The directions may advise you to print at, e.g., 300% enlargement to make full size woodworking furniture plans for certain parts. Of course, for wood furniture like a picnic bench or platform bed there would never be any reason to do pattern tracing at all; you would just measure all of your boards with a tape measure and then cut right across. Downloadable wooden furniture plans have one obvious advantage over nondownloadable ones: if you tear your woodwork plans or spill something all over them or the dog eats a chunk, you can just print out another copy.
I’ve been asked why downloadable wooden furniture plans come as PDF files and are not provided in a format that can be used directly with CAD software. This is tied to copyright issues. The project plans you buy from a business are covered by copyright protections and you have no reseller rights. Merchants worry that if they distribute the CAD format files, it will be too easy for someone to modify the diagrams just a bit and then repackage them for resale. I don’t know of any place that sells plans for a fee that will provide woodworking plans in DWG or DXF formats.
Some folks want to sell works that they have made from purchased woodworking furniture plans. As far as I know, you are allowed to sell crafts you have built from your wood furniture plans so long as you are not mass producing them. I am not a lawyer, so if you really want to build furniture from someone else’s wood plans and sell for profits then you should consult with a legal expert in your area.
You obviously won’t be able to get much from your wood furniture plans unless you know enough about woodworking to make the parts described in the diagrams. Written instructions provided with project plans can certainly be helpful, but video is really a much more effective tool if you need practical how-to help. YouTube has become a convenient place to find some neat shop tricks, or just see how another woodworker handles a particular job. You can learn how to correct a twisted door, for instance, or how to use a table saw safely. As of this posting, there were approximately 26,800 YouTube videos providing woodworking tips.
Kent Perdue has put a series of instructional videos on YouTube, including one in which he demonstrates a method for bending wood. This is a skill you may need for some rustic wood furniture plans, so I’ve included it here as an example of what can be found in YouTube. I think the bending process is much more clear from the video than it would be through written guides for diy woodwork projects (diy is short for “do it yourself”).
Kent Perdue’s video demonstrating a method for bending wood. This skill is required for some advanced wood furniture plans.
So, you’ve decided to build something in the shop and you are looking for wood furniture plans to get you started? Congratulations-it is a great way to relax and you’ll also get the satisfaction of enjoying something you made with your own hands. Building things yourself can be a good way to save money in this recession, too.
People have been crafting furniture from wood for centuries, so wooden furniture plans have been created for all type and size projects. These range from small bookcase and cabinet building plans to designs for elegant beds and grandfather clocks to kids furniture projects such as toybox and wood dollhouse plans. Garden projects and wood outdoor furniture plans can also be found if this is more your cup of tea. Of course, it is best to start with simple wood furniture plans-especially if you don’t have too many tools to begin with or too much time to devote to it. Benches and bookcases are good starter woodworking projects.
Before you rush off to get any specific furniture blueprints, think first about how you will get the work done and what equipment you will need. If you don’t have tools or only have very few and are figuring you’ll get more equipment before tackling some projects, I suggest you hold off buying until you’ve decided for sure what wood furniture plans you want to try first-and have looked at them to see what tools are required. You don’t want to spend your spare cash to get tools, only to find you now have something you won’t need right away and you don’t have something you do need…but can’t pay for it for another month. You don’t just need saws and drills; lots of clamps are required for some woodworking furniture plans and the cost of the clamps will add up.
Don’t forget-safety has to be a top priority when you are at home as well as when you are at work. Always plan to work safely, since nothing will put a damper on the fun like a lengthy visit to the ER! You’ll also get an earful about it from your spouse or parents the next time you discuss your plans for wood furniture building. Be sure to have plenty of space to maneuver around any tools. Remember that you also need to allow enough room to handle and support the wood itself, since some of the boards may be more than several feet long. Dogs and cats are terrific companion animals, but they can be a hazard in a shop. They probably won’t like the noise anyhow, so keep them locked out of your work space whenever you are cutting or drilling. Your wood workshop is a nice place to relax, but you do need to keep your wits about you.
Now, time for fun! I hope you enjoy the site and thanks for coming to my neck of the woods.
Hi, Jody here. When I started looking for wood furniture plans and ideas for patio and outdoor projects, I came across some fun plans for tiki furniture! Knock yourself out, then have a Mai Tai.
Hi, Jody here. When I started looking for wood furniture plans and ideas for patio and outdoor projects, I came across some fun plans for tiki furniture! Knock yourself out, then have a Mai Tai.
