“Mistakes happen on every project it comes with the territory,” says Montgomery. “Plywood is more stable.”ĭo-it-yourself projects are ultimately about learning new skills and expanding your own capabilities, neither of which comes without a few missteps along the way. “With solid wood, you deal with expansion and contraction a lot,” he says. In addition to the material’s affordability and authenticity, Montgomery enjoys working with it for its ease of use. In fact, it is the versatile and inexpensive sheet of plywood that connects original furniture makers-whose famed use of molded plywood characterized the era-to projects that excited amateurs are working on today. And while a period-correct buffet or credenza from the ’50s is something that might strain many household budgets, DIYing a similar piece can be as simple as a web search, a big-box hardware store, and a truck to haul plywood sheets and lumber.

The result of a golden era of design that stretched from the end of World War II until the 1970s, the “MCM” aesthetic inspired furniture that is still coveted, and increasingly expensive, today. Scroll through very popular DIY video builds, and you’re almost certain to read the words “midcentury modern–inspired” over and over. “I watched these DIY videos and realized I was doing everything but shooting it,” Montgomery says, “and I already knew how to film and edit.” His own video channel, Modern Builds, was born in 2015. The leap from helping out friends to crafting furniture in front of a camera came quickly. Before long, he was getting requests for increasingly complicated items and turning to the internet to find out how to build them. As he continued building gear in his apartment, word of his projects started getting out to his friends. “Right around the time I got into school I realized I could build things like speaker cabinets and guitar pedalboards as a side hustle,” he says. “My parents always had tools around the house,” says Montgomery, “but I wasn’t building projects all the time when I was a kid.” It wasn’t until he left home to study music production and engineering that a natural inclination for problem solving-and a need to build stuff on the cheap-started him down the path of DIY. Beyond the occasional inclination to slap together a bike ramp with his buddies or a rough planter box for a gift, there wasn’t a lot to foreshadow a career as a do-it-yourself media maker. Growing up in Oklahoma City, Mike Montgomery wasn’t raised to be a builder or craftsman, and certainly didn’t think much about midcentury modern design.

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