How to Make a Pair of Nightstands

Description:

This week my friend Andrew (from college) and I set out to build a nightstand for each of our rooms. I came up with a design and a few days later we got to work. For this project, I used 1 sheet of oak plywood (About $50 a sheet) and 1 quart of stain per nightstand. We started out by cutting the plywood down to size over at the table saw. With all of the cuts made, we applied the edge banding to all the edges of the plywood that would be exposed after they’re constructed. From here, we started the assembly process using dowel joinery. After all of the pieces were assembled, we sanded the nightstands down to a smooth finish with 220 grit sandpaper and started the finishing process. Andrew used Red Mahogany stain on his nightstand and I used Dark Walnut for mine. After the stain was dry, we added the handles to the drawers and the nightstands were all done. We’re really happy with the way our nightstands came out and had a lot of fun working with a buddy in the shop this week!