On the other hand, I learned quite a bit from it. I checked all my measurements, too! I will try that in CAD to see if it really is 11.5' wide or I have something else screwed up.Īna was right, this is really NOT the project for a first-timer. The second problem I had was that the drawer gap ended up being 11.5' wide. I should have sanded the tops of the legs square to each other before I attempted to put the top on. I understand why the top is two pieces (1x12 is the biggest dimensional lumber you can get), but I could not get them on the same plane. I tried building the nightstand this weekend and ended up with two problems, one with the design and one most likely with how I measured (or with dimensional number not being right). The plans on this site are all fairly simple for beginners and many of them may not be aware of the weird ways of lumber sizing and using true measurements would help them as well as keeping the rest of us from having to recalculate the entire project if we have to get lumber that isn't the same as what the person who drew up the plan used. If your 1x3 is 3/4 x 2 3/4, please use those measurements.

There's a sawmill near me where you can get 2x4s that are actually 2x4! I'd rather see these schematics with the true measurements given instead of unsaid assumptions that don't necessarily translate into real world lumber. You can buy a 2x4 from two different stores and have two different measurements. As Joe pointed out above, not all lumber is the same. Maybe I'm missing the assumption that a 1x3' board is only 2 3/4' wide, but you see what I mean. Using the same 3/4' assumption, that moves the front piece of the legs in 1/4' on each side of the drawer, leaving only a 10 1/2' opening for the 11' drawer.

For example, the drawer is made all of 1圆s with the back piece cut at 9.5' and the front piece at 11', which means the 1' wide boards are assumed to be 3/4'.

It would be helpful on projects like this where exact measurements are needed to make everything fit together if we were given *actual* measurements.

Night stands with hidden compartments