DIY: How to Turn $2 into $100

Recycling a $2 piece of hardwood board.

A funny thing happened to me last week. I went to a resale shop with some donated equipment and as I walked out of the store I spotted a tall piece of stained red oak basebord propped up against a wall with a For Sale sign on it. I had to look twice because the sign read “$2.00”! I grabbed it and had an interesting ride home with that board sticking out the rear of my SUV.

I immediately saw that the board could yield me three or four good frames, if I handled it right, so here I am with a DIY with how I got the process going. You’ll see my methods as well as the finished product, the point of this all being that you can do the same, save money and have frames with interesting patina.

Granted, my equipment may be more than you want to invest in, but I’ve done the same thing with used entry-level equipment when I began framing. The basic thing that helps is having a table saw and they are readily available on the used market for less than $150 for name brand, easily stored 8” table saws.

In this video I make use of the routed design at the top of the baseboard to fancy up the frame. That’s a great time saver for me (I won’t have to send it through my router table). But the remaining strip of wood will easily make some beautiful frames and I’ll show you how I do that in a future DIY, since that venture will require me to use a router in addition to a table saw. And yes, you can do all this using hand powered tools, but it will take a great deal more time.