When you really get going there’s no holding back when it comes to potential cool woodworking projects that you can take on. All you need is a little patience and practice, to achieve wonders.
We all start off with small jobs, like making a shelf unit or putting something together for the workshop or home. It’s easy to get the bug and want to do more. At North Castle, we can help. We have years of experience on tap to support you on your woodworking journey.
Check out these advanced woodworking projects that will build your confidence when planning your own woodworking expertise.
Our Top Advanced Woodworking Projects
When making plans for any project you can let your imagination run riot. Wood is a fantastic, natural resource that can bend to the will of anyone with the patience, space and time to spare. At North Castle, we’ve been doing this a long time, and are happy to help with any questions you might have.
Take a look at our top advanced woodworking projects below.
Workbench
Every woodworker needs a strong base from which to put together their plans. The only way to properly facilitate your cool woodworking projects is if you have a suitable workbench as a launchpad.
All you need are some decent solid lengths of 4 x 2 to build the frame, which can come from anywhere, as long as the lumber is clean. It’s best to buy lumber for the top as you don’t want a scrappy finish to work on.
The best thing about building your own workbench is that you can customize it to fit your workspace exactly. Start with a basic plan, and customize it accordingly. If your workshop has multiple uses, you can fit heavy-duty, locking casters to the base so you can move it around.
Office Desk
Once your workshop is ready to go the sky is the limit. If you have a desire to work with some fine finish materials, but don’t want to go for the family dining table straight away, then an office desk woodworking project will get you limbered up with the good lumber.
Desk plans come in all shapes and sizes, from utilitarian to fancy, but the common theme is functionality. The finish to the desktop is important, but this project will also challenge other skills, such as putting together drawers with box joints.
There are nominal standard heights for furniture, which is great if the person you are making it for is a standard human. The best thing about building an office desk yourself is that you can customize it for its user, perfect if they’re either over 6’ or below 5’.
Dining Room Table
I have an heirloom dining room table made by my uncle in his workshop in the 1960s. It’s in the garden room and is a favorite spot for the cats to sit and sun themselves. It’s a simple design, but the finish must have taken him days to perfect.
He used contrasting lumber to give it a color counterpoint. At North Castle, we have a wide selection of hardwoods that you can use to deliver a similar effect. Our hard American Maple is a tough customer to work with, but rewarding, and will stand any test of time.
Again, the good thing about this advanced woodworking project is that it is entirely customizable to the space it will inhabit, and the folks that will sit around it. Of course, you can have the most fun turning traditional table legs on a lathe.
Handmade Chess Set
We’re not suggesting that you hand-carve an entire set of pawns, queens, rooks and castles! That would be quite a stretch for most of us, but a chessboard is an achievable and very cool woodworking project to do.
It’s also an opportunity to try out your precision cutting and finishing skills. With one or more of our lumber packs, you can choose the perfect contrasting species to get the best effects.
A classic chess board design might also include storage for the chess or draughts pieces, while also being an eye-catching piece of work. This plan, from the Woodworker’s Journal, will speak volumes regarding your skill and patience as a player.
Kitchen Island
We’ve all seen the reels on social media showing Ikea hacks, and how to make a kitchen island from computer cut-out panels, but we all know there’s no substitute for a well-made hand-crafted piece of kitchen furniture.
Your kitchen is the heart of the home, where families come together to eat, and talk about the day. A good kitchen island can be a food workstation, a dining area, and deliver essential storage.
With kitchen island designs you can go full-on pioneer farmhouse, make it rollable for repositioning wherever you want, and build it to exactly the dimensions you need to fit your space.
Custom Bed Frame
The Mozart opera ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ opens with a man, on his knees, measuring up a room for the bed he will share with his wife. It used to be the way we all selected our furniture, from pioneering days on.
But putting a custom bed frame together is not a difficult project to master. At the end of the day, if you have successfully built a workbench, then most furniture projects are simply a variation on the theme.
One key mistake that is very easy to make: is access and logistics. Most large bedframes won’t be easy to move once assembled. Check that the bed you make will fit through the doorways, corridors and staircases of your home, or assemble it in the room!
Bar Cabinet
There’s an old saying from 18th-century England that goes, ‘Those who purchase a house, open a tavern for their friends’. This is true up to a point, especially if you are a sociable sort, or have a large circle of friends and family.
And it’s when you host an event that you can also take a little pride in displaying your cool woodworking projects. It’s nice to be able to create useful things with beautiful hardwood lumber, and even better if you can share those accomplishments.
Bar or display cabinets are where you can indulge in your sense of elegant design. The timeless grain and quality of oak, or walnut lends itself to the finishes demanded of fine great room furnishings.
Porch Swing
Fall and Winter are great months to get on with outdoor projects so that they are ready for when you want to start enjoying them. There’s nothing better on balmy Summer evenings, or on those fresh Spring mornings than sitting out on the porch in a swing seat or other outdoor furniture.
Better still if you are out there, sipping on your coffee or morning tea, and sitting on something you put together yourself. What a satisfying way to start the day. Always make sure that the support is adequate overhead for any suspended swing furniture!
If you like the idea of a porch swing, and you don’t have a porch, then you can always hang a swing from an A-frame and locate it wherever you want to sit and contemplate the view!
Backyard Storage Shed
Self-storage is one of the top growth areas in business in the USA today. Homes are getting smaller, while the need to store our stuff is apparently a growth industry. I can’t think of a better way to solve this problem and free up storage for lumber and other good things, than putting a storage shed together.
Whatever size backyard you have, there’s always one area that will be perfect for a storage shed, tucked up against the back fence, or down beside the house. The key to making a shed a success is ensuring that the base foundation is solid and that there is good drainage.
We don’t recommend that you use premium hardwood for your outdoor buildings as treated softwood will be more than adequate. However, by taking your advanced woodworking knowledge and applying it to a generic storage shed plan, you can probably come up with something as bespoke as you need it to be.
Our S3S Lumber Packs are Perfect for Advanced Woodworking Projects
What is an S3S Lumber pack? Simply put, it’s a selected pack of lumber that is finished on three sides, to make joining lumber, and assembling pieces a faster, and more satisfying experience.
Milled to exceptionally good quality for lumberyard material S3S is surface planed to give a straight-line rip to provide the maximum amount of wood to work with. It sets you up with parallel edges better than rough-sawn and will save time in your shop.
When you’re ready to move forward with your woodworking project plans get in touch to find out how we can help, or drop into our depot and check out our selection of premium hardwood.
