Making one’s own furniture is not something that appeals to everybody, but it can be very rewarding especially when you have some good woodworking plans and projects to work from. 
Generally furniture-making does not fit into the category of simple woodworking projects, and it will help if you have some good carpentry skills. The techniques you need to learn include cutting wood, chiseling wood, planing and routing wood and drilling wood. Of course you will also have to learn how to join wood. If you want to make something quite fancy, you should learn how to turn wood and how to work from scroll saw patterns.
Unlike many beginner woodworking projects for the garden, like basic pergolas, fences and even simple garden sheds, furniture making generally entails slightly more involved joints to ensure that the item will look attractive and be strong enough to stand up to use.
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Traditional craftsmen use many different joints for woodwork, some of which are quite complicated to cut. But with today’s sophisticated wood glues, you can often get away with reasonably simple joints. Well presented furniture woodworking plans will show you exactly how to make the required joints.
Some of the joints you might need for furniture include:
* Bridle joints for furniture frames, where the wood meets at a corner to form an L- or a T-shape. You might find these on sleigh bed plans.
* Housing joints, often used for shelving, where a groove is cut in the side timbers to support the horizontal pieces that become the shelves. Fireplace mantel plans might incorporate housing joints.
* Tongue and groove joints which are sometimes used for the backs of cupboards, where each length of wood has a groove in one side and a thin tongue in the other, so that the tongue fits snugly into the groove.
* Dowel joints, where a dowel fits into holes drilled into two pieces of wood to strengthen a joint. They are commonly used in chairs as you will see if you study chair woodworking plans, and are often used to mend furniture.
* Mortise and tenon joints where a tongue (or tenon) at the end of one piece of wood fits into a hole (or mortise) cut in a second piece of wood, to fit the tenon. You will find that mission furniture plans feature mortise and tenon joints.
* Traditional wedge-shaped dovetail or box joints that are carefully cut so that two pieces of wood interlock and form a strong connection. These are the most difficult of all to make. Traditionally they were cut by hand, but nowadays they are usually cut using special machines. Simple woodworking projects and furniture woodworking plans are unlikely to use these, but if they do you can get the edges professionally machined.
* Butt joints, where two pieces of wood are literally butted up against each and glued and either nailed or screwed, may be used for simple shelving, table tops and simple outdoor furniture. Even Adirondack chair plans show how wood can simply be screwed together in this way.
* Halving joints are stronger than butt joints because two sections of wood are cut to exactly half their thickness at the point at which they meet, so that they slot neatly together. This is the kind of joint you might find if you follow plans that show how to build a picnic table. You could also use these joints to build a bunk bed.
Of course you will often find that there are several different types of joints in woodworking project plans, so study them carefully and follow the cutting instructions accurately. If you do you will be rewarded with furniture you will be proud of.
