Tips on starting furniture making?

Welcome to the community! I'm gratified and flattered that my project sent you over here, so I'll try to point you to some good resources.

Information/How-To

As others have said, your local library likely has an entire shelf of woodworking books, that's definitely worth checking out.

Youtube is a great resource here. There are lots of great woodworkers of all stripes posting useful and fun videos. Some excellent channels include:

• The New Yankee Workshop. The classic PBS TV show starring Norm Abram is being officially uploaded to Youtube.

• Stumpy Nubs. A tool tips sort of channel that offers quite a bit of practical advice.

• 3x3 Custom. The host, Tamar, tends to post project vlogs, things like "here's how I built this bed frame."

• Wood By Wright How To. One of them hand tool purists who relies almost entirely on hand powered saws, planes, chisels and files to build his projects, occasionally allowing himself to use a modern power drill. He has a fun dad-joke style sense of humor and a lot of great videos on technique.

• Woodshop Companion. Craftsman Nick Engler, author of many woodworking books, shares fun and practical tool techniques and projects.

Among many more, those are just some of my favorites.

Another great place for woodworking information is your local makerspace. Makerspaces come in all shapes and sizes, I was a member of one with a very complete wood shop, along with a membership full of craftsmen of all stripes who were excited to talk about their work.

Finally, of course, there's this Lemmy community and its members.

Tools

You would be amazed what you can get done with a good hand saw, a few chisels, a block plane and a file or two. Though it can also be a pleasure to work with a garage full of power tools. Which way you go is up to you.

You can of course go spend a few grand down the tool aisle of your local home center, but that kind of outlay can be a bit much if you're just starting out and aren't sure if woodworking is for you or which direction you want to take your new hobby. Markerspaces/friends who are also into woodworking are again great resources here. You can find pretty good deals on tools at garage sales, estate sales, pawn shops, swap meets, thrift stores, hell your local library may have tools you can borrow.

Some of my tools I bought at Lowe's, some of them I bought on Amazon, some of them have been in my family for generations, some of them I made myself.

The first thing I want you to put in your cart when you go shopping though is a good pair of safety glasses, and some hearing protection for power tools. If you've still got those cloth masks everyone had during the pandemic, I find those can be nice when sanding or otherwise creating a lot of dust.

Wood

Some folks break down pallets to get wood. Some folks buy 2x4s from the big box store and chop those up. An aisle or two over from the construction lumber you'll find "project boards" which are a little better, but still not wonderful. I don't want to steer you away from these sources of wood, because newcomers are often more willing to take chances, make mistakes and get messy with lumber like this, and the lessons you'll learn the hard way from barely dried yellow pine are hard to teach otherwise.

You'll want to find a proper lumber yard or sawmill in your area. It can be intimidating to walk into what seems like this huge, professional B2B operation and ask for three boards but they usually love to help. They usually stock wood that is rough cut with the idea that you're going to surface it yourself, but for a fee they'll surface it for you so you don't have to invest in those tools or learn those techniques as you just get started.

It can be really intimidating to learn about all the different species of wood and their characteristics, but start with a few, learn to compare and contrast them, and then go from there. Pro tip: there is a type of maple that takes on these grey streaks that some people think are unsightly, so it's sold for shockingly cheap as "paint-grade maple" or some such. This stuff is very nice to work with, a lot better than construction lumber, and very affordable.

Starter projects

You may have an idea for what you want to build, but if you're thinking "I want to build [thing] but that feels complicated, what are some more beginner friendly projects to get me started?" here are a few ideas:

Repair or restore existing furniture. Find a crappy old dresser at a thrift store, clean it up, fix it up. Great project for learning about stain and finish, to practice sanding techniques etc.

Bookshelves. A lot of my earlier projects were bookshelves made of plywood. A great project for practicing with the table saw.

Cutting boards or coasters. Great projects for practicing jointing and panel glue-ups.

Work benches, jigs and tools. You can buy a workbench but it's probably good practice to build one. You'll need lots of jigs and fixtures that you can make yourself better than you can buy; I would never buy a taper jig, for example.

Keep in touch, let us know how you're coming along. I hope you have lots of fun.