Building a Cornhole Set

I'm pretty sure my love of projects is genetic.  My parents are the most projects-oriented people I know.  As an engineer and seamstress, projects are pretty much their professions, but my parents love a good project even in their off time.  Since I was little, many of our family activities have centered around working on projects together.  What a great way to bond!

My Dad was in town over the weekend, so in keeping with our family spirit, we did a project!

Tommy and I have been wanting a cornhole set (or two!) for a while now.  We've never quite gotten around to building one, but I thought it would be a really fun project to tackle with my Dad.

Some light googling led me to an excellent set of instructions.  We took their advice on making two sets - it's cheaper and more efficient to make two at once.  Besides, Tommy wanted one for his company, and I wanted mine to be pink!

Buying supplies was fun!  It's happened again and again, and true to its name, everything fit in the Fit!  Except my Dad, who kind of had to ride on top of the lumber.

We got to work cutting the boards as soon as we got home.  It went quickly, and we managed to get everything cut in the time it took to preheat the oven and cook a pizza!

I did all the drilling and screwing, and Dad did all the measuring, cutting, and hammering. 

We made a good team!  A few more hours of work and we had finished up the construction phase!

All in all, this was a fairly simple and quick project.  We spent about $45 on supplies which included lumber, screws, nuts & bolts, and a few new drill bits (I already had the saws, drill, wood glue, triangle, and measuring tape).  The entire construction phase, including four trips to the hardware store, took about five hours.

We ran into a few issues:

• Quarter sheets of plywood are NOT exactly 2' x 4'!  We had to go back and shorten some of our frame sections so it would all line up properly.
• Lowe's does a poor job of sorting their carriage bolts, so we bought some in a weird size and had to go buy special drill bits to make the right size holes.
• We glossed over the directions about how to do the legs on the boards, and ended up having to go back to the store for new 2 x 4's so we could make new ones.  Always read the directions first, and actually follow them!!!

But I also learned a few things:

• If you sand the cut ends of your boards, they fit together nicer.
• Fine-toothed jigsaw blades do a better job than really aggressive blades when cutting wood with a weird grain (like plywood)
• You don't need fancy tools to do a quality project (we only used a hand saw, a jigsaw, and a drill)

And was reminded of a few things:

• My car is awesome
• I love doing projects with my Dad!