Community Brag Posts

I made 2 for my bare front patio

Base was made from recycled timber and the top was made with new pine.

The rails were made from curtain rails. 

One end has wheels for easy moving.

We love this fence refresh from the previous owner's solution to enclosing the pool equipment and a/c unit! It was the first time we fastened something to our house - drilling through stucco in the process. That was a big deal for us diy-ers! We made the frame out of 4x4's (which ended up being the most challenging part to the whole thing), applied the horizontal fencing boards and then used one of those $15 fence hardware kits - it was a great project that has made a huge difference in our backyard. Yay!

I made the shim bed a long time ago and really liked the look  and height of the apothecary side table. I can put all my books and stationary and the stuff I want stashed next to my bed. I modifyied the plan slightly to have shims make up the front panels so it has a slight rustic feel to it and matches my bed. Thanks to Ana's plans I am starting to make my own bedroom set for under $300 bucks and completely to my taste. 

Built this to give my daughter more space for her books. She picked the color (she's 6), and my 9 yr old son helped paint it.

We are getting a puppy in a couple weeks and we want to crate train her. We have a small house so the only place we have to put the crate is in the living room. Needless to say, we needed a way to make the crate look good in our living room. That's when I found the plans for the rustic x-end table. The dimensions were almost the same as the dog crate. I only had to change the dimensions by a couple inches and wallah! Now the crate doesn't look out of place and I have a place to put my laptop and phone! I ended up ripping the 2x6's just a saw blade width down to get rid of the rounded edges and that made the top come together smoother. I also planed down the top a bit as well. In some spots, you can hardly tell they were 2x6's laminated together! I used two different stains on it. The first coat was a tudor stain but I wanted to warm it up a bit so I put a coat of antique walnut on it as well. I am very very happy with how this turned out. Now my husband would like me to build a coffee table to match!

Ana's little crates go perfect in our beach themed bathroom. I altered Ana's plans a little. I changed the dimensions to 12 x 11 1/4, and I did not use lath sticks for the crate slates because I wanted something sturdier. I had some left over 2×12 wood from a previous project, so I cut off 3/4 in wide pieces to make the crate slates. The wood grain gives character to the crates and makes it look more weathered.

7’ long table using 4 2x8’s on top with 2 2x4’s in the middle. The bench is also 7’ long. I changed up the bottom on the bench to make it super sturdy (added angle braces). 

This project is a 4-drawer variation of the Easy Jewelry Box, made with select 1x6 for the top & bottom, craft boards for the box and drawer sides, with craft board overlay drawer faces. No plywood is visible on the outside on this build.

This version has a smaller footprint and is much lighter than the original plan, built using the thinner craft boards, and the drawers slide on S4S instead of full shelves. The drawers are 1/8" shorter than the box depth to ensure they don't touch the box back, so the overlay fronts lay flat to the box. The overhangs are ¾” wide mini colonial moulding, and the feet are squares of 1 1/8” lattice scrap. The design includes a toe-kick and top-kick which allows room for both overlay drawer faces and top/bottom overhang.

I spent a couple of hours redesigning the plan to get this as light as possible, while making the most of the usable space within the footprint, and leaving no plywood edges visible on the outside. The build itself took about 6 hours, including the build, sanding, finishing, and decorating.

I modified the Fancy X Farmhouse Table plan to shorten the table to 6 ft instead of 8 ft and added breadboard-style ends. Jacobean stain.

Night Stand

I loved this from Ana's site so much we tacked one. Please note I glued, screwed and dowel ed the holes. I hate kreg jigs. We also made ours taller to add an extra shelf.

My father-in-law and I knocked this project out in about 5 hours including the trip to the lumber yard. You've got a great basic design here! A few modifications we made:

1. I thought the depth of the shelves in the original plan was a little too shallow so I used 3 2"X6"s instead of the 4 2"x4"s. That made the shelves 1 1/2" deeper. Although 2"x6"s are obviously more expensive, the overall cost for the project didn't change much because we only had to use 3 boards per shelf instead of 4. This also reduced the amount of screwing and made it easier to position the shelf boards without taking measurements since we only had one middle board to deal with (instead of 2 with the 2"x4"s). We just eyeballed the spacing of the middle shelf board as we worked.

2. Since our garage has a 10' ceiling, I decided to go 8' tall with the unit. This allowed us to add a 5th shelf.

3. Some oversized tubs can be 18-20" high or more so I varied the height of each shelf -- 24" at the bottom, then 20", 18" and 16". There's approx. 24" available between the top shelf and the ceiling.

4. Due to the position of the garage door track, I had to notch out a couple feet at one side. The end support piece is only 6' high.

5. Since many storage tubs can be 16-18" wide, I made sure that there was at least 54" between 3 of the vertical support structures. This will allow us to store 3 tubs side-by-side and maximize storage. You might notice that I have two vertical supports that appear to be very close together near the back wall. I did this so I would have something on that side to attach more shelving to on that short wall where the garage door opener is. 

The only cuts we had to make for this entire project were for the 18 1/2" 'braces' or support pieces on the vertical ladder structures. The shelves are either 14' or 12' (top shelf only) and the vertical 2"x4"s are either 8' or 6'. Most lumber yards will carry these lengths in either 2"x4"s or 2"x6"s. 

We didn't use any wood glue, and I admit this may come back to haunt me. However, to get a good fit and eliminate gaps, I used clamps I already owned to squeeze the boards together before adding the screws. Everything feels very solid and sturdy to me. 

Because of the extra height compared with the original plan, I was worried about it possibly tipping over (we have a 10-year-old who likes to climb ) so I made sure that 3 of the supports are lined up with the wall studs. After leveling the entire unit, I plan to anchor it to the wall using 3 1/2" screws.

So for about $187 in lumber and maybe $20 in construction screws, I've got 76 feet of STURDY shelving that should accommodate hundreds of pounds! Not a bad investment at all...