How To: Industrial Sofa Table

Hey everyone and welcome to the latest installment of Rustic DIY Projects!  A few weeks back I had some empty space behind my couch that's been bugging me so I decided I would make something nice and useful to fill it up. After some brainstorming I came to the conclusion that the most practical use of this empty space would be to fill it with a sofa table. Now I've never made a sofa table before but after glancing over at my coffee table literally four feet away I figured I may as well go with an industrial style table to match it. I also wanted to incorporate a somewhat natural feel and appearance to it so I bought a slab of scrap mesquite for the table top. After a bit of work and some help from my dad this is what I got. Hope you enjoy this week's project, an industrial sofa table made with some mesquite and 3/4 inch galvanized piping! Photos courtesy of my friend with great photography skills, Iris Marquez! 

How To: LED Wall Tree

Hey everyone hope you're all having a good week and welcome back to Rustic DIY Projects! This week I tried out something a little different. Recently I've been wanting to incorporate more ambient lighting and practicality into my projects and came up with this gem of an idea. The concept of this changed several times throughout the process of building it so things got a little sloppy at some points and there was definitely a great deal of trial and error involved but luckily I was able to salvage this piece from my mistakes and I'm happy with the end result. Hope you all enjoy it!

How To: Twine Art World Map

Hey everyone! Hope you're all having a great week and welcome back to Rustic DIY Projects! This week's project is something I stumbled across online a while back and have been wanting to do but just haven't had a chance until recently. This time I made a decorative wall mounted world map with a rosewood stained wooden backboard. The landmasses are all constructed of 1-3/8 inch nails and twine. This was one of my more cost friendly project, however there was definitely a trade-off in the "time" department as hammering in all the nails, wrapping all the twine, and getting the large template printed out definitely consumed more time than I would like. But regardless it's all done and this was the end result. Hope you all enjoy it!

How To: Rustic Towel Rack

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog Rustic DIY Projects! Hope you're all having a good week and hopefully this project can help make it even better! So late last week I was browsing stuff online and I came across some pretty cool shelves, hat racks, and towel racks made with wood and piping. So after having made my coffee table I decided it was time to try out another industrial/rustic style DIY project! I like capitalizing on vertical space so I decided to make another shelf this week and use piping to give it a bar so it can act as a towel rack as well! After putting in the work this is how it turned out! Hope you enjoy!

How To: Wine Bottle Lights

Hey everyone! And welcome back to Rustic DIY Projects! And if this is your first visit then welcome to my blog! Where I make neat stuff and teach you how it's all done! This week's project is fairly simple, easy, and inexpensive to do! I've seen this idea online, thought it looked cool so I tried it out on some wine bottles I had lying around the garage and it actually came out pretty well. So if you're a wine drinker looking for something you can do with those empty bottles then this idea is perfect for you! See below for how it's done and share it with anyone else you think may be interested!

Also BIG SAFETY ITEM, make sure any and all of your string lights are unplugged at all times while you're working with them. If they're plugged in while you're following these steps you WILL get shocked! So think safety first and make sure your lights are all unplugged until you're finished.

How To: Bottle Opener and Catch

Hey everyone! And welcome back to Rustic DIY Projects! Sorry that there's been a bit of a time gap between this and my last project, I've had a lot of stuff come up this month. But today I have a project I've been wanting to try out for a while now but just have never had the time to. This is a relatively simple and practical project you can do at home with minimal tools, time, and effort. And if you like rustic, western style stuff (which if you're following this blog you probably do) then this project is perfect for you! This bottle opener and catch can easily mount to your wall, your fridge, or you can just leave it on your counter. Regardless of where you want it, it looks and works great and when it's full you can just dump it out and start using it again! Check out below for steps on how you can make your own and share with any other friends you think may be interested!

How To: Glow In The Dark Resin Inlay Shelves

Hey everyone! Hope you're all having a fantastic day today and welcome back to Rustic DIY Projects! So this week I've decided that I'm gonna try my hand at making some shelves using glow in the dark resin inlays. I saw this idea online and thought it was cool so I decided to make some of my own. I'm using some scrap boards of mesquite I picked up at Woodcraft, some glow in the dark pigment I bought online from Glow-Nation, and epoxy I bought from Home Depot. Hope you enjoy! If you like it share this link!

How To: Red Cedar Steam Punk Coffee Table

Hey everyone! Hope you're all having an outstanding week/day! Sorry I've taken so long to post this How-To but I've been very busy this last week. But anyways, I'm selling my current coffee table to a good friend so I decided rather than buying another coffee table I'll just build my own! I've seen similar ideas online and decided I'd try to make one with my own design preferences in mind. Unlike my other projects this one wasn't cheap, ended up spending over $200 on piping, wood, tools, and other supplies. BUT I'm okay with that because it's way more satisfying to own a table I made myself. This project changed about 5 different times during the process of making it but after a lot of brainstorming and at least 10 trips to 4 different home improvement stores I can say I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Here's how I did it.

How To: Console Table

Hey everyone! Hope you're all having an INCREDIBLE day! If you aren't then maybe this project will help cheer you up! Today I'm going to show you how to make a console table out of red cedar! I saw this idea online at Ana-White.com and decided to make my own little spin-off of it and post pictures and details on how I did it! I've already made one for myself just so I can have something to leave my keys, hate, mail, and phone on when I get home after a long day of work and I use it all the time! This one I'm showing you today is going to be for a lucky friend! So enough talking, let's get started!

How To: Wine and Liquor Bottle Table Centerpiece

Hey everyone! Hope you're all having a good day and thanks for stopping in to checkout my latest "How-To"! Now most people who actually know me personally know I own a business that re-purposes up-cycled liquor bottles into tumblers, vases, candle holders, shot glasses, bowls, ect... Well now I've decided to share with you how you can make two cool candle holders (they're electric, normal candles will just go out because don't get enough oxygen) and a nice planter for your table centerpiece made from two wine bottles and an empty jagermeister bottle! Yes this project will require some power tools but unlike my other projects so far it doesn't require much. There's many ways to cut a bottle but I've found the easiest, fastest, and most successful way is to do it using a tile saw equipped with a glass cutting blade, here's how it's done! 

How To: Pallet Wood Clock

Hey guys! Hope you're all having a good day! If not then maybe today's project will help brighten up your day. Today I'll be teaching you how to make a nice rustic pallet wood clock made from, you guessed it, pallet wood! It's simple, it's easy, it's cool, practical, and of course it's very bank-account friendly because abandoned pallets are generally free! So here's how it's done!

How To: Tree Branch Tea Light Candle Holder

Hello again everyone! Today I'm gonna show you how to build some of these cool tea light candle holders made from dead tree branches. The idea first came to me when I was working in my kitchen and heard a loud thump in my backyard. When I went to go check it out I saw that a large tree branch had fallen off my tree. At first I was thinking "Woohoo more free firewood!" But then I thought to myself "You know, maybe there's something I can do with this other than burning it..." So I took it into my garage/workshop and after a little brainstorming I thought of a cool way to turn it into a set of candle holders! They came out great and below are the steps I used to make them. Hope you enjoy!

For Starters...

Hey everyone I'm Chris. I'm a 25-year old DIYer living in San Antonio. And like a lot of other people in San Antonio, I like making stuff!

Almost a year ago today I closed on my first house and like many other home owners, I caught the DIY bug. I immediately began turning my house into a home, turned my empty garage into a beginner level woodworking shop, and got right to work on all the cool projects I'd been wanting to try.

To this day I still consider myself a beginner as I've never had any prior experience or training with woodworking, DIY stuff, or even tools in general before. However many of  my projects have won praise among my peers and I've decided that I'd like to share them with any other beginner level DIYer/Woodworker(s) who may be interested.

My personal interests are generally tailored to woodworking, up-cycling, making cool random DIY projects, and backyard gardening And you can guarantee that you'll be seeing plenty of posts about the above mentioned coming up with step-by-step instructions!

Hope you all enjoy my blog! And don't forget to follow me on social media so you can stay up to date on all my latest projects and ideas!