Not finding trim to match plans

Question

I’m very new to woodworking - I’ve installed a floor and done baseboards, and was thinking for my next project I could build a Little Free Library to improve my skills.

Looking at the example plans on the Little Free Library website, list a few kinds of trim in the materials that I’ve been unable to find at Home Depot:

• 9/16 x 9/16 x 15” pine
• 1/2 x 1 x 96” pine
• 1/2 x 1 1/2 x 96” pine
• 3/8 x 3/8 x 72” pine

As this is a beginner book I assumed all the materials would be readily available, but these don’t seem like standard sizes.

Should I buy larger pieces of trim / dimensional lumber and cut them down to the sizes above instead?

Answer 1

Should I buy larger pieces of trim / dimensional lumber and cut them down to the sizes above instead?

Yes.

These would be assumed to be sawn by the user. Any time you see something in a cut list or plan that isn't a nominal size of dimensional lumber it has to be sawn from larger stock — sometimes substantially larger, since you might want to e.g. start with Doug fir 2x6s, and not just the closest size.

And if for example you wanted to build something from southern yellow pine specifically you might start with 2x8s and up, as SYP is commonly the species found in much wider boards (although there'll be some regional variation here).