My Inner Amish Girl

Paula & I decided to put the 'make' in homemaker ala Ana White of Knock Off Wood. She's a mom with no formal carpentry training who loved the furniture at Pottery Barn, Land of Nod, Brookstone, etc. but wasn't liking the cost of such simply designed pieces. So, she decided to try her hand at making a few things herself...and it worked!

When she realized how empowering it felt, she created a blog and chronicled her building adventures, posting the plans for free. Likeminded moms followed her easy instructions and voila, Knock Off Wood had a following.

There are new plans all the time, most inspired by either necesity or posts on the message board on her website. I love lurking on the site, and have been hinting very loudly that my cub scouts should do a woodworking project with Dad that results in a dollhouse for their baby sister and a table for the entry.

So far...that hasn't happened.

I decided I needed to channel my inner Amish girl and build the furniture myself. I searched through the 'starter' level plans on Anna's site and found one for a console table that looked completely do-able. I'd been pondering it for the entry...and then I was over at Tina's and saw how she has two TVs sitting on the carpet and another on a broken desk and thought...housewarming gift!

Paula jumped right in with me, picking out the boards and chosing paint colors, even calling in her husband to tutor us in power tools. We built the table in one afternoon...and I must say, we were pleasantly suprised by how good it turned out!