Courtney & Brent - Gray House Studio

How to Use a Biscuit Joiner

In this tool tip tutorial we are showing you how to use a biscuit joiner.

Hey! Brent here. Today I am sharing how to use a biscuit joiner to join two pieces of wood together. This is a cool woodworking tool that comes in handy for projects like building a coffee table where you need to put multiple boards together to create the table’s surface which is exactly what I am working on right now.

A current trend is using multiple pieces of reclaimed wood for the tops of tables. I have found when I would just glue or nail the boards together, the joint was not as strong and the boards had the potential to come apart in places.

A biscuit joiner uses a circular saw blade to cut a hole in each piece of board. By applying glue to the hole, adding the wooden biscuit in the slot and clamping the two boards together, you get a much tighter bond and makes it the perfect solution for a nice and sturdy table.

As I build the top of our coffee table, I am going to walk through my process of using the biscuit joiner.

How to Use a Biscuit Joiner

First, I think it is important to highlight the tool settings I use. Most biscuit joiners have three settings you have to consider.

three settings to consider

1. Select the Biscuit Size

First, I need to set the dial on the biscuit joiner to match the size of the biscuit I intend to use. As you can see in the image on the left, for this project the size of biscuit I am using is 20.

So I made sure to set the dial to 20. The picture below shows a biscuit I am using which will have the size printed on it. The photo on the right above shows the circular blade that will make the cut.

The larger the number on the dial, the further the tool allows the blade to cut into the wood which creates a deeper slot for the biscuit.

2. Adjust the Surface Angle

The next setting I need to set on the tool is to adjust the front guard to match the angle of the surface I want to join together. When cutting into the side of a board to join two boards side by side, use the 90 degree setting. This is what I used for this project.

3. Center the Biscuit

On thin surfaces, like a table top, it is important to center the biscuit on the board to create the strongest joint. On the biscuit joiner you can adjust the front guard up and down with the knob on the side of the tool. In the above photo on the right, notice the red line. This line identifies where the cut will be made.

Using a Biscuit Joiner

1. Now that we have the tool set up like we need it, it is time to prep the boards to be cut. First, I arranged the boards in the order I want to join them. An important step is to mark the boards in a way that will make it easy to reassemble them after you have taken them apart to cut the groves for the biscuits.

I have found that once you start gluing the boards together you don’t have a lot of time to sort through them and figure out the original order of the boards.

My favorite way to mark the boards is to draw a large “v” across the face of all the boards. This gives two points of reference on each board making it easier to assemble them in the correct position. After I draw a “v”, I add a dash everywhere I plan to join the boards with a biscuit.

Two to three biscuits per board is usually good enough. I am using three per board for this project.

2. It can be hard to handle the biscuit joiner and hold the board you are cutting steady. So I have found that it is best to clamp a piece of scrap wood to my work space. I push the board I am cutting up against the scrap wood to keep it in place.

Before I begin cutting, I make sure to align the mark I made in the previous step with that red center line on the biscuit joiner.

3. Then I make the cut. The photo above shows what the finished cut looks like in the side of the board. As you can see the biscuit fits perfectly in the slot that was cut out.

4. With all the boards cut, it’s time to apply glue to each board. It is important to get glue in each biscuit slot. I don’t worry about being a perfectionist with the glue because when gluing five to ten boards together, time is of the essence.

Any excess glue can easily be cleaned up with a damp rag after the boards have been clamped together.

5. After the glue has been applied to each board, I insert a biscuit into each slot and line the boards up so the “v” I drew earlier lines up correctly. The biscuits help compensate for any slight warping the boards may have to create an even surface from one board to the next.

6. Once the boards are aligned, I place clamps around the boards and tighten the clamps until the gaps between the boards close and glue squeezes out of the seams.

The pressure of the clamps can sometimes create indentions in the boards. I have found a solution to this is to use a scrap piece of wood between the clamp and the board you are gluing together.

7. I always make sure to give the glue more than enough time to dry based on the wood glue guidelines. You can see how these multiple boards now look like one solid surface.

I will erase or sand off the pencil marks. Now all these boards should have a really strong bond and make for a great table top for our new coffee table.

Step one of the coffee table is complete! As you can see I am using the coffee table below as inspiration for the one I am building for our library. Notice in the detail shot on the right that the top of the table has several individual boards next to each other, that is the look we are going for. I’ll be back soon to share the next step in the process of building our coffee table.

^ coffee table inspiration from West Elm

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Date Night at Home

Lifestyle Courtney & Brent

Happy Valentine’s Day! Today’s we are straying a bit from our traditional home renovation projects and in honor of the day of love we are sharing how we created an inexpensive date night at home.

We took a break last night and had an early Valentine’s Day date with music and dessert. We wanted it to be low key, inexpensive and on our back patio so we could take advantage of those gorgeous string lights that we installed in our backyard a few weekends ago. In my opinion nothing is more romantic than a date under string lights. Luckily, we are in Texas and even though it was a little chilly, we were able to hang outside at night in February. Everything I used for the table for two I repurposed from somewhere else around the house (or borrowed from my mom). The night was so much fun and proved to us that we don’t have to go out and spend a lot of money to have a nice date and enjoy each other’s company.

^^^ We got some new plants (Kangaroo Paws) for our front porch planters. We brought the planters around to the back to frame the table. I like the height they brought to the space and the color of the flowers made the space feel romantic. Putting down a rug is also a great way to add a little sophistication to a make shift space for little expense. We got this rug for $28 at Lowes!

^^^ I did a little napkin origami transforming red paper napkins we had around the house into two cute napkin hearts. The small white square plates are from Target and make the perfect dessert plates. We made the chocolate covered strawberries at home and let’s just be real, they did not turn out like I had hoped. We got distracted and let the chocolate get a little too thick before we managed to get it on the strawberry. From now on we’ll just stick to working in the garage/shop. But they still tasted delicious!

^^^ For the centerpiece I used this stemmed hurricane candle holder from Pier 1 and flipped it upside down. I filled the bottom with LED string lights and put a large three wick candle on the top. It gave the table some height and a place for me to incorporate more string lights!

^^^ I took these little heart photo holders (from Pier 1) that we used at our wedding and stuck little love notes in them that were created using chalk tape.

^^^ We talked, we ate and Brent even busted out the guitar and played for me all in our very own backyard.

We are back to work today on our latest project – our library shelves. We have been giving little sneak peaks here and there and this weekend we are putting the finishing touches on them so we can share them on the blog next week! I can’t wait to show you how they turned out.

What are your Valentine’s Day plans? Do you prefer to go out or stay in?

DIY String Art

Decor, House Courtney & Brent

How to make DIY string art of a vintage plane schematic on a large canvas.

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner so Brent and I were looking for a fun alternative to just buying each other presents this year. We wanted to do something that was affordable since we are currently in the process of putting together our library and getting ready to install a sprinkler system in our yard (I mean pay someone to put a sprinkler system in our yard).

Our solution was to make some DIY string art together! It was a fun way to spend some quality time collaborating and being creative. Plus, it would be something we could both enjoy for many years knowing that we created it with each other and it fills up the empty wall space we had. We knew we wanted to make a diy string art piece, we wanted it to be on canvas and we wanted it to be BIG. We are hanging it in our very front room (it will eventually be our photo studio) over the craft cabinet so we wanted to build the canvas to be the same width as the cabinet will be.

Since we created it with a lot of the supplies we already had in the garage we made the entire piece (canvas and all) for around $20 and I think it looks pretty awesome. But Brent did get his masters degree in art so I was pretty confident that he could pick up some (most) of the slack due to my lack of artistic abilities. I just loved being able to learn from him, spend time with him and watch him work his magic! I would definitely call this project a success.

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SUPPLIES

MATERIALS

Large piece of foam board
Cotton Fabric
Tacky Glue
All Purpose Black Thread
Corsage Pins
Print out of an image (on several pieces of paper since it is large)

TOOLS

Box Cutter
Staple Gun
Ruler

How we Created Our DIY String Art

1. First we needed to build our canvas. We tried something different with this piece and built the frame or the stretcher of the canvas out of foam board. The reasoning behind this was we needed something for the pins we would be using to attach the string to stick into.

They needed more substance than just the canvas to stay in place. Plus, using the foam made this piece a lot lighter. I cut the foam to size using a box cutter and the cool thing about the foam board is you can easily break off the piece you cut. It pops right off and you have a straight edge.

2. Next, I used the extra pieces I cut off and glued them on around the rim as a second layer to provide extra strength and stability. Because I am impatient and the glue I used didn’t dry very fast, I used a few corsage pins to hold the two layers together so these pieces didn’t fall off while I was handling it.

3. Now I had a nice thick layer around the rim to attach the canvas to and give more depth to the frame. I also attached a piece of board to the back of the foam board in the middle to help keep the foam from bending or warping too much. This also is where we attached the wire to hang it on the wall.

4. Brent had some canvas left over from his school days. This particular piece had some stuff on the back of it so I turned it over to use the opposite side and cut it to fit the stretcher and then stretched the canvas and stapled it to the foam rim of the frame.

It looks like a canvas!

5. Finally, I needed to paint over whatever was already on the canvas. I just used some really old off white paint from a can that we found in the garage left from the previous owner. It was kind of gross and in a very liquid state but it covered the canvas and the color wasn’t too bad. It gave it a vintage feel (since it felt like I was using vintage paint, no telling how old that stuff was) but I guess you get what you pay for and I didn’t spend a dime on paint.

6. After the canvas dried, I brought it inside and taped our image to the canvas. We chose this cool vintage airplane schematic and printed it out on multiple pieces of paper so that it would be the correct scale. I then used masking tape to tape the pieces together and to the canvas.

7. We took the corsage pins and poked holes all around the outside lines of the image. After that we pulled the paper back off the canvas and then stuck the pins back into the canvas where the holes were.

8. It was around this point that the actual creating of the art was ready to begin. It was a very detail oriented task and involved a lot of tedious work, a good eye for design and strong fingers. It really was a one man job and who better than the man with the art degree so I was happy to sit back and watch him create.

I was pretty impressed how Brent free handed the inside of the plane to match the image by just looking at the picture and placing the pins and string accordingly.

9. He left the string loose in some areas creating knots and bunches of thread to add variation and visual interest. I thought it gave it a worn look like we inherited this artwork that was created years ago rather than it being brand new.

The finished DIY string art piece! (the spool of thread will not be staying it is strictly there for documentation purposes)

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Planning Our Home Library

Uncategorized Courtney & Brent

At the front of our house we have your typical formal dining room and formal living room but we don’t have much use for a formal dining room and our vision for our house is anything but typical so we decided to think outside of the box with what to do with the space that would allow us to get the most use out of it and fit our needs the best and a formal dining room just isn’t what we need or really want. We are both book nerds and love reading so we decided to instead take the formal dining room and turn it into our home library.

This room sat empty for quite awhile and then temporarily housed our treadmill and gym equipment. After that we stored Brent’s musical instruments in it for a bit. It has been full of mismatched stuff and doesn’t really give the best first impression when guests walk in our front door. This month we are finally ready to start our transformation from a blank catch all room to a cozy home library and I couldn’t be more excited about it!

First things first we our planning our home library and what items we want to incorporate into our home library. So far we have put a fresh coat of paint, Mindful Gray from Sherwin Williams, on the walls and that has already made a huge difference but we are really pumped to add some furniture in this room so it finally feels like it has a purpose.

Shelves | Built by Us
After we painted the library, the first project we worked on was building our large bookshelf that spans the entire length of one of the walls in the room and includes seven large shelves that go almost all the way to the ceiling. This project has taken us several weekends to work on but we love the results. The shelves will be the focal point of the room as they will display our books and collectibles so we wanted to custom build the shelves to fit the exact dimensions of the wall. We will be sharing a whole post dedicated to how we put together the shelves soon.

Pendant Lighting | Rose City 6in. Classic Schoolhouse Pendant from Rejuvenation
How cool is the bronze pendant light? We are wanting to replace our elaborate and ornate light fixture that is currently in this space with something more sleek and simple and I think the Rose City Schoolhouse Pendant light really fits with the style we are going for in our library. We want something unique that adds character to the room without being overly industrial or distracting. We love how this pendant light is simple with a vintage vibe. This one has definitely been added to our wish list.

Coffee Table | Library Coffee Table from West Elm
This coffee table from West Elm is awesome and it is even named the library coffee table, so it seems as if it is meant to be! Honestly, Brent will actually be building our coffee table because we want it to match with the craft cabinet he will also be building in the room next door so it all ties together nicely but I am quite fond of the idea of using this piece as inspiration. I like the simple design, worn look giving the impression our library has been around for a long time and gotten lots of good use and the storage options.

Art | Created by Brent
Brent created this piece for an art show while he was in graduate school a few years ago and it is one of my favorite pieces he has made to date. I think it fits with the style of this room perfectly and I am so excited to incorporate it into our library.

Sofa | Charcoal Gray Nolee Folding Sofa Bed from World Market
We have been back and forth on trying to decide if having a sofa, chairs or a sofa and chairs would look the best and be the most functional in this room. Finally, we decided that having just a sofa would be the most comfortable and fit the space the best as to not overcrowd the room. When I found this folding sofa bed at World Market, it went to the top of our list as the sofa I would like to have in this room because it is modern, a great color and it folds out to be a sofa bed which is always handy to have when you have extra guests come to stay. I wouldn’t mind if we got this sofa sooner rather than later!

Wire Baskets | Wire Baskets from HomeGoods
I bought the wire baskets a week ago and consider them a MAJOR score. Brent has a pretty good sized record collection but the records won’t fit on our shelves so I suggested getting some baskets to store the records in that would fit under the shelves. I browsed the internet for a long time but it wasn’t until a spontaneous trip to HomeGoods that I found these wood/wire baskets that match our shelves perfectly. They are the exact right size to fix under the shelves and hold the records. Plus, they were only $16 a piece which was a lot cheaper than any of the other baskets I had been looking at online were.

Floor Lamp | Warren Pulley Task Floor Lamp from Pottery Barn
Every time we go into Pottery Barn we drool over this floor lamp and we think it would be a perfect addition to our library to add some extra reading light and provide some character. I am hoping this can be the one item we splurge on for the library.

Tree | Blue Ridge Fir Executive Japanese Maple Tree from Wayfair
I would love to have a live large plant in this room to add a some life and color to the fairly monochromatic and neutral decor we are planning in this room but the truth is we don’t get a lot of light in the one free corner where the tree would go and I am horrible at keeping plants alive. So, this realistic Japanese Maple Tree would be a good alternative to add a little warmth to the room.

Rolling Ladder | Antique Original American Library Ladder from 1stdibs
Ah, the rolling ladder, what library wouldn’t be complete without one of these cool things propped up against the shelves to access those out of reach books on the top shelf? This Antique American Library Ladder is pretty awesome. Unfortunately, I don’t think our budget allows for spending $1,200 on just a ladder. So we are using this one as inspiration to build our own. Having a rolling ladder will really complete the look and and feel of our library.

Another large project that we want to do is to replace the carpet with hardwood floors. That will transform the look of the room from blank and bland to cozy and interesting. However, we have tile throughout the entire house that we want to replace so it is kind of an all or nothing type of project that needs to take place at one time when we are ready and can afford to rip all our floors up. Hopefully that time is coming up soon.

I love window shopping and planning out how a room will come together. These are a few of the key pieces that we like and will make our library feel like it belongs in our home. It will be a place we want to host guests when they over and visit or just relax and read. We will continue to work on this room and share updates on the space as our projects progress.

Do any of you use a room in your home for a library? What are some of your favorite pieces that you have incorporated into that space? We would love to hear them!

Wood Barn Door Plans

Uncategorized Courtney & Brent

We have been receiving a lot positive feedback from one of our very first home renovation projects: our wood barn door Brent made from scratch that is in our master bedroom. Thanks for all the kind words! This project was a favorite of ours and was one of our lower expense projects that came together fairly easy. In case you missed it, you can read more about our wood barn door and see the finished product here.

Before Brent started building the door, he designed and created wood barn door plans in SolidWorks to reference once he got into the shop.

Today we are sharing the wood barn door plans he created. If you are interested in building a DIY wood barn door but not quite sure how to go about it, you can download our wood barn door plans below to get started. We chose a dark stain and dark hardware to match our bedroom furniture but how you customize your wood barn door is completely up to you! As always feel free to leave any questions you may have below.

Download our Wood Barn Door Plans (PDF)

Our First Podcast Interview

On another note, a few weeks ago we were approached to be interviewed for the DIY April podcast. Of course we said yes! It was such a fun opportunity to chat with the lovely April last week. We discussed why home renovation was a natural choice for us and how we came to start the Gray House Studio blog. We also highlighted two of our favorite projects so far and talked about how we came up with the idea to incorporate the wood barn door and reading nook into our home and our process of putting them together. Plus, we share a few fun facts you might not know about us.

Many thanks to April for having us as guests on her podcast. We had a blast!

You can listen to our DIY April interview here.

Choosing the Right Drill Bit

House, Tips + Tricks Courtney & Brent

In this tool tip tutorial we are explaining why choosing the right drill bit for the project is important.

FYI: This post contains affiliate links to drill bits we use. As an Amazon Associate Gray House Studio earns from qualifying purchases. This is at no extra cost to you. We appreciate you supporting this site. Read our privacy and disclosure policy.

One thing we have learned so far while working on home renovation projects is that having the right tools for the job is key to a successful outcome.

Today we are talking specifically about choosing the right drill bit. If you asked me a year ago I would have told you a drill bit is just a drill bit.

They are all the same, right? But the past few projects (and Brent) have taught me that is not true at all. Not all drill bits are the same and they do not all produce the same results.

Below we are highlighting three drill bits that we have used for our latest projects.

Choosing the Right Drill Bit

Below we are highlighting three drill bits that we have used for our latest projects.

1. Paddle Bit/Spade Drill Bit

What it looks like: The paddle bit bit has a long point in the middle to keep the blade from walking as it spins. The flat parts next to the tip bore a hole the size labeled on the bit.

When to use this bit: This bit is great for drilling large holes all the way through a material especially if the hole needs to be deeper than one or two inches.

Pros: The main reason to use a paddle bit over other types of bits is the price point. You can get a set of these bits for the price of one of the other bits.

Cons: They are not great for boring holes partially through a board. Another downside with this type of drill bit has to do with safety. If the drill is not kept level while drilling a hole and the bit digs into the wood unevenly or hits a knot, it can catch the work piece and whip the drill from your hand.

Real Project Use: We used a paddle bit when drilling the hole in the ceiling to run the wire for the light fixture in the reading nook. It was the only bit that could make a 6 inch deep cut. Read more about how we built our reading nook.

> shop the paddle bit set we use

2. Forstner Bit

What it looks like: The forstner bit has a small point in the middle just long enough to help center the bit and two blades that span the radius. The outside of the bit has teeth to clean up the outside of the cut.

When to use this bit: This bit is great for drilling holes that need to be a specific depth.

Pros: With two blades running along the radius of the cutting surface, the bit shaves off small layers of wood at a time and allows for a very precise cut.

Cons: These bits are more on the expensive side.

Real Project Use: We used a forstner bit to drill out a hole for the hinge on our bathroom cabinet door. Read more about how we added shelves to our bathroom cabinets.

> shop the forstner bit set we use

3. Hole Cutter / Hole Saw

What it looks like:The hole saw has a central drill bit that attaches to the drill and extends through the middle of a circular saw.

When to use this bit: The most common use for this bit is for cutting holes for door knobs. The quality of the cut does not usually matter because the plate behind the knob completely covers the hole.

Pros: The saw can be removed from the central bit allowing you to have multiple saw diameters with only one bit that connects to the drill.

Cons: There is a limit on the thickness of material that this bit can cut. The drill bit can only cut as deep as the cup of the saw.

Real Project Use: We used the hole cutter to make six holes for the wood light fixture in our master bathroom. Read more about how we built our wood light fixture.

> shop the hole saw set we use

We chose to highlight these three drill bits because they all do the same thing but with slightly different outcomes making each one better suited for certain tasks and certain projects.

If you have any questions about choosing the right drill bit for your next project, feel free to leave them below.

How to Use a Biscuit Joiner

How to Use a Biscuit Joiner

three settings to consider

1. Select the Biscuit Size

2. Adjust the Surface Angle

3. Center the Biscuit

Using a Biscuit Joiner

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Date Night at Home

DIY String Art

TIME LAPSE

SUPPLIES

How we Created Our DIY String Art

PIN THIS PROJECT

Planning Our Home Library

Wood Barn Door Plans

Our First Podcast Interview

Choosing the Right Drill Bit

Choosing the Right Drill Bit

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