Having nice furniture doesn't have to cost you a bunch of money. Some construction grade lumber, sand paper, screws and some finish will produce some fairly good furniture.
The tools are what usually scare people away. But generally you only buy a tool once and it will pay for itself over and over again. You can make furniture with a hand saw and a screwdriver, although somewhat more difficult than with a well stocked garage.
I've built a fair few pieces of furniture since moving into my house two years ago. Most of it out of wood that was stashed under my garage by the previous owners. Mostly I built it on the fly and didn't finish it 100%. The pieces I did take the time to sand and apply finish to looked a whole lot better then cheap Walmart furnishings.
Another little utilized fact is most home improvement stores will cut lumber for you. Making the project more or less just measure, sand, screw and finish. For under $100 you can buy a reasonable drill/driver.
The project I tackled over the last few days was a laundry table we had quickly built when we moved in. It was constructed from 2x6 construction lumber we collected from somewhere and a piece of furniture grade plywood. I don't have the before pictures, but if you are interested in seeing the progression from a stack of miscellaneous lumber bits to the final product then I will document the process a bit better
I started by disassembling it and moving it outside where it was sanded down to 400 grit and stained. I added some 2x4 braces to stabilize the legs and a shelf for detergent. I finished it with wipe on poly urathane and left it in a garage for a few days to get rid of some of the fumes.
Most of the lumber here was left overs or throw away lumber. The only things I paid money for where stain, poly urathane, sand paper and screws/glue. The best part about what I did pay money for is I have enough left over to do more projects
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