My wife recently passed away. I used my time off to build her a giant bookshelf

It's less expensive than pre-made furniture.

A good place to get started is construction lumber -- just 2x4s. They're not bad once you clean them up with a sander and potentially planer and finish them, and they have a certain industrial aesthetic raw. They're cheap enough that if you mess up or change your mind, you can throw them away and try again. And if you want to redo a piece of furniture, you can do that too. If you want to make a custom mount for something, just drill a hole.

Homes look surprisingly good when all the furniture is custom -- floor-to-ceiling wall-to-wall bookcases, desks designed for what's on them, etc. -- even if it's just cheap construction wood.

From there, you can move upscale. You can go quite far with Home Depot plywood sheets. Done well, they look great.

I have a mix of fine woodworking pieces (which take a month or two to do), to things which take a couple hours to throw together. And it feels awesome once most of the furniture in your home is handmade. And it's a much better use of space.

Get a few 2x4s, a pair of cordless drills, some nice screws, a circular saw, a carpenter's square, a tape measure, and safety glasses and you're good to go to get started.

If you want to step it up a notch, get a random orbital sander, proper guides, (GOOD) clamps, a router, and a jigsaw. If you can at all afford it, buy NICE tools. Better beats more. I'd rather have a good Bosch cordless circular saw and drill than a full kit of Walmart toolkit. And they'll cost less in the long run, with less damaged work pieces, and fewer broken tools.

Also, Youtube videos are great. So are online woodworking forums. Classes are nice if you can afford them, but hardly necessary.

> presumably by taking classes at a technical college?

Trial and Error is all you need. I've never formally trained myself in woodworking and I'm pretty good at it. I could definately replicate what this guy did if I had the time and money. My wife and I have a book collection that currently lives on eight 2.5 metre high by 1 metre wide Oak bookcases that fully line two walls of our living room (which we call the Library). Each unit has 8 shelves (so 64 metres-ish of book space). All built by my fair hand.

The trick is to plan, and to plan well. being able to mock things up in a basic CAD package is a must. I use an old copy of Sketchup (the offline version) and it does me.

After that it's tools. Bad tools make for a bad job. If you can, spend money on good tools, but only buy what you need for that job. After a few years, you'll have a workshop full of nice kit that enables you to tackle anything. Once you learn what your tools can do, you suddenly realise how many projects are now accessible. It's a bit like getting a 3D printer and realising how many things you can now build or fix!

Finally, measure twice and cut once. This is your mantra. Accuracy is everything. If you are not sure, cut the wood slightly too big and trim off until it fits - it's easy to make a bit of wood smaller, it's impossible to make it bigger.

I've also designed, built and fitted our kitchen (that's all Oak also), and the desk units in the study (where I'm typing this) plus numerous other projects to long to list.

If I could give up IT and do woodworking everyday, I would.

Woodworking is one of those "skills" that might seem so unapproachable, and yet the learning curve is quite steep (in the technical sense).

I'm nowhere near a master and make a lot of stupid mistakes. But my relatives think I'm worrying to much about those, nobody notices, nobody cares besides me. But next time I do the same thing again, I know. If it really counts or is entirely botched I just redo the piece.

Wood is similar to clay. You just try by sawing pieces in two smaller pieces, start to grind them, then come different sawing tools and techniques, then finishing (oil, laquer, etc.), then routing... Obviously you start with smaller, simpler things.

And in contrast to what others said: Don't be afraid of mistakes. A dent is just a dent, the piece is supposed to "live" anyway. Your kids will put their teeth in soon. And a piece of wood can be replaced cheaply (don't start with ridiculously expensive hard woods obviously). You can always cut a new one.

Not wood working, but I remodeled almost my entire last house. 1 kitchen, 1 bathroom, 2 bedrooms, a hallway and minor work to the dining room and family room. These were complete guts down to the studs with new windows, doors, electrical, plumbing, insulation.

Expense wise, you need quite a few tools and obviously materials. Doors I always went with solid core doors (vs hollow) and double pane windows. We used fiber glass insulation and drywall was appropriate to the room (water proof drywall in the kitchen / bathroom, regular in the rooms) always at least a half inch.

Demolition was fun if not exhausting (plaster and lath walls). Neighbors took the original doors to match existing builds.

Took time to get good at mudding the joints to get them smooth. I did the electrical; sub contracted out for plumbing. I don't mind electrocuting myself lol, but a leak in plumbing and you can throw all of your work out.

Dad (who has experience) helped and I learned a lot from him (especially on cutting trim and tile). Otherwise watching a ton of home improvement shows; youtube videos; etc...

All of it is totally doable; just need to take your time, measure 20 times, cut once, etc...

My favorite work was masonry - I built a brick pizza oven 1 year; then a concrete block planting wall with a fireplace in it the following year.

Can't say I want to do it again; took all 8 years before we divorced and she kept it to get everything but 1 bedroom done; but if I have to when I buy my next house, I know I can and how.