Jenn: Hey guys, I’m Jenn Largesse and today I’m here with Corey Decker from Sawdust 2 Stitches. Corey, Thank you for being here.
Corey: I’m happy to be here.
Jenn: So I thought we could start out by you telling us a little bit about your blog, Sawdust 2 Stitches, and about how you got started.
Corey: I had done a—actually it’s one of my biggest things—an apothecary. And everybody wanted to know how I did it, so I was sending all of my friends these written-out tutorials. It was lot of work. And so, I would share these things with my friends and family, and they all wanted to know how I was doing it, and I felt like I was constantly repeating myself. I was like, “I should just write this down and copy and paste it.” And then Sawdust 2 Stitches was born.
What can people expect to see on your channels?
Corey: I’d like to think I do a little bit of everything—a lot of home renovations, that sort of thing. I love-my passion is furniture builds.
Jenn: Corey does fantastic furniture builds. You can also see she’s fantastic at styling—she really shows you (once she builds a custom piece) what it will look like in a space. You would never guess a lot of your stuff is DIY or custom built. You’re also building a brand new shop, and so that’s your big new project, right? Tell us all about it.
Corey: That is my baby. So when I started out, I wanted something that nobody’s done yet. I feel like there’s a lot of really cool spaces out there. But it really started out as; I didn’t have enough space. We have been saving up. We just moved to the country, and so we started [building] the shop. My husband and I have been building it ourselves, and so we didn’t skip on any of the steps. We painted- I went thorough and painted it all white inside, and I stained the trusses, and I painted the sheathing so it looks like a studio in there.
What is your favorite project?
Corey: You know, some of my favorite builds have actually been my work organization stuff. I have an outfeed table that I love and I’m working on creating a new one because I just got a new saw. And so I’m going to be recreating a new outfeed table and making it completely functional.
Jenn: What was some of the hallmarks of your old out feed table that made it such a well-received project?
Corey: I was in a very small garage when I first built that, and so I needed it to be completely multi-functional, which is a huge part of all of my builds—it’s got to be multi-purpose, it can’t be just pretty. And so it’s got the track clamps on top, it’s got all my pneumatic storage, it has a battery-charging station in it, and it held my compressor, and my table saw. It created an entire workshop in one tiny little space and that’s what I needed.
What are you best known for?
Corey: My Ikea cabinet makeover, I mean, it’s the one that kind of started to grow interest in my brand. But everybody has that Ikea shelf and it’s ugly—it’s not pretty. It’s cheap, it’s what most families can afford and that’s why I bought it. I didn’t buy it with the intent to make it over. I bought it because it was in the scratch-and-dent section of Ikea and I needed to hide my crap. Well not even hide it, just get it up and out of little fingers ways. But lots of people have those. So I was like, “I’m gonna do this.” It’s amazing how many people have actually sent me pictures of their finished product. It’s very rewarding.
What is your best advice for new diy’ers?
Corey: Honestly the best thing that I can do, and that I tell people, is to find a small project. Find a very small build. There’s a ton of great resources out there of just small builds. Start with something very small, and you will normally learn to use something like a drill first, and then you’ll start to venture into- normally like a miter saw. And once you kind of feel comfortable with those, you can use them for so many different applications and there’s a lot you can do with just those two tools. And then from there you can kind of slowly start integrating other tools.
What video styles or makers inspire you?
Corey: The things that always draw my eye are the multi purpose projects, something that does more than one thing—those are the ones I always gravitate towards. Things that can do a little of both, that’s what I’m always looking for.
Jenn: Perfect. Well, thank you so much for being here with us. If you guys want to see more of Corey’s work, you can check her out on Sawdust 2 Stitches. Thank you so much for being with us.
Corey: Thanks for having me.
