I get a huge amount of satisfaction making things that serve functional needs. It's an object I can point to and say "I built that." Even better is when an individual can't determine the make, and enquires about how much I spent/where it was made.

My first decently large, and thus far only major, piece of furniture is a cat treehouse my girlfriend and I built for my cat. I was disgusted by the price and the poor construction quality of the pieces sold in pet stores, and I didn't want to pay shipping for something better.

So, I looked at the design, figured out what I would need and went at it. It took about a day using the university shop, and I was thrilled to bring it home and watch my cat jump on, claw at, and sleep on it.