Community Brag Posts

I combined the Reclaimed-Wood Headboard with the Hailey Platform Bed patterns, both found here on Ana's website to make my queen-sized bed. Alterations to the general instructions include: A 1x6 was sandwiched into the lower portion of the headboard to create the head of the bed platform (same as the panel pieces of the headboard). Another 1x6 was fastened from the back, the same as the other trim pieces. 4 holes for the light wires were chiseled out of the top trim, then a 2x6 was fastened across the top of the headboard to allow more room for the mounting of the lights. (these last 2 pieces flush to the back of the headboard instead of centered.) So the project was not too top-heavy I added a 2x6 center leg to the headboard. For even more stability I added a 4 x 4 leg to the center support of the bed portion. The lights are LED (Ikea) and the wires are fastened to the back of the headboard to keep them safe from pets, etc. The corners of the platform bed are held together with screwed-in knock-down hardware (Lee-Valley). Dis-assembly was important to me, so the bed could be moved from the garage to the house! I am not an experienced wood worker by any means, nor am I particularly fast. The plans I downloaded from this site were very detailed. The project was both fun and full-filling!

We're expecting a baby in November and we picked this as our first Nursery Decor project!

We were originally inspired by the Letter Z project we found on here on Ana's site. So we went ahead and made our own design on google sketch-up. It was a good first project for us to learn how to use Google sketch-up (although we still aren't very good at it).

We wrote about building the project on our blog here: http://thehuth.blogspot.com/2012/10/brought-to-you-by-letter-h.html

This was a fun project and we love the way it turned out!

I was lucky enough to know someone who's property had 4 barns that were on the virge of falling over.

I removed wood from the barns I needed, some wood was just inside the barns. The thick pieces with holes going around the table were actually old telephone poles (horizontal section). 

The plans were straight forward, but prepping, cleaning, sanding the wood from an old barn was the most time consuming. Also hardly anything was straight or square! 

Modified from original plans to fit the area and our 70" TV.

This is a simple project for the beginning woodworker. There are a variety of bird feeder designs available on the web but I wanted to try something a little different. Anyway, this is my try at a simple bird feeder.

Build Instructions:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Simple-Bird-Feeder-1/

This was a custom build for a friend. It's nearly 8 feet long and I used the plans from the classic chair made simple for the back legs and support for the seat. Everything else was customized to fit her needs. =) Lots and lots and lots of pocket holes but this piece turned out better than what was pictured in my head! 

Our home (like many) does not have a fireplace or mantle. So, I decided to build one. Thank goodness for Lowes. They pre-cut all wood for me. I was afraid to use a drill (I'm a rookie), so I nailed all pieces of wood with 1 1/2 inch nails. Wood glue was fabulous prior to using the hammer. I omitted decorative molding too. I think I used too much antique paint, but I can always re-paint it next year. I don't think I'll have the mantle up all year long, but it's great for a Christmas decoration. I hope this gives hope to anyone out there considering this project. If I can do it, YOU can totally do it! Thank you SO much for helping a novice builder like me add something to our home.

My son was about to turn 3 and I really wanted to redesign his bedroom as a birthday surprise. We went with a Toy Story themed room, he just loves Toy Story. I started off by painting the walls blue with yellow stars like Andy's room in the movie. I added some custom painted art work and then it was off to find a cool playhouse bed. My husband and I were shopping around and we could never really find what we were looking for in the store. So we decided to build one ourselves using plans from this website. I used the playhouse loft bed and the playhouse loft bed stair plans, for the bed and the stairs. I used the castle loft bed plan as inspiration for the slide. The project took us about 5 weeks from start to finish. We both have full time jobs and we did most of the work on the weekends. I looked at each plan very carefully and made notes. I had to modify the stair plans slightly to fit the space where we wanted to put the bed. The stairs look narrow, but they work just fine. My husband and I can both use them to get up in the bed. The stairs feature hinged stair tread with built in storage. We built them like that at first, but then later decided to make them stationary stair treads, with plywood. I didn't like the way the hinges looked and the top stair was so deep that I was worried my son would fall in there and get stuck. The storage idea was neat, but his safety was more important to me. The bed turned out really nice and VERY sturdy. Both my husband and I are able to get up there with my son (not at the same time). Another modification that I made was instead of slats to hold on the mattress, I used a piece of plywood. I wanted the roof in the playhouse to look finished, and I didn't want to see his bedding hanging down from the slats. I painted the top of the plywood white, where the mattress goes to blend in with the slats, and the other side was painted blue to match the walls inside the playhouse. I did modify the playhouse front facade to have 2 windows and one door. I like the symmetrical look. The total project cost about $400. I used birch plywood and select pine boards, and about 6 quarts of paint. I noticed AFTER we had finished the bed using the birch plywood, that Home Depot had cabinet grade plywood on a random end cap, that was just as nice for $12 less a sheet. If I could do it all over again, I would definitely use that!. I wanted the paint to have a nice smooth finish, without having to do a lot of sanding or patching. We had Home Depot cut the plywood to the dimensions we needed. I had my husband cut the rest of the wood dimensions listed in the plans, and then I painted all of them before we put the pieces together. I used a small roller and self priming paint. The paint finish looks great. After assembling the bed I can not imagine what I would have gone through trying to paint it after the fact. The slide was a bit tricky, I looked at the plan for the castle loft bed and attempted to use those dimensions, and for the most part they worked. But when we went to assemble the slide, we did end up recutting some of the wood to different dimensions. I used a piece of the melamine coated closet shelf material for the slide. It is already finished in white and its nice and slick, like a slide should be! I hate MDF, but for this it seemed the best fit. We cut the top edge at an angle to meet up with the slide platform. PLEASE BE CAREFUL with this material. After it was angle cut the edge was razor sharp and I sliced my fingers up. Once it was installed it butted up perfectly to the slide platform, and the edge was hidden and not a danger. But use caution during the install. Clamps are your friend! We used Kreg clamps for everything. They kept the wood in place while we were screwing the parts together. The coolest thing that my husband came up with was clamping two identical pieces for plywood together, and drawing the template for the slide support walls. Then he used his circular saw to cut them out. We ended up with two mirror image pieces. They looked awesome. I left them clamped together when I sanded the edges as well. We really didn't have any building experience other, than building tables and chairs for children, We got the deluxe Kreg jig kit and a miter saw on Craigslist for $50 each and they were both practically brand new. This was the first time we had ever used a Kreg jig and we are both addicted. That thing is the bomb. We locked my son out of his room for a week while we assembled everything. We had the big reveal at his birthday party and all of the guests were excited to see it after seeing my facebook teaser posts of our progress. There were 8 kids up there at one time and the bed did not budge. They all enjoyed the slide. I did the planning and paint and my husband did an awesome job making all of the cuts and sanding everything. We are both very proud of the final product. My son love his new big boy bed. DISCLAIMER: This bed is not recommended for a child under 6 years old. My son is mature for his age and we monitor him carefully.

This project was something my wife wanted, but I didn't want to spend alot of money. I managed to build this project for less then $25.00 minus the paint. We are not sure what color it's going to be and I think I might add a shelf to it at a later date. We had to cut this down by 19 inches to fit it into our hall way. Hopefully I will get the rest of it finished in the next month or so depending on the weather.

Really no words needed :) It's a Squatty Potty. Don't judge until you've tried it!

Coffee Table built from these plans: http://www.ana-white.com/2012/07/plans/rustic-x-coffee-table

Media console built from these plans: http://www.ana-white.com/2015/08/free_plans/grandy-sliding-door-console

Variation on the Farmhouse Table plans. Built from knotty pine and finished with Minwax Early American stain.

We really wanted to give our 2 year old a play kitchen for Christmas. We also didn't want to spend the money on the likes of the Pottery Barn set, and weweren't sold on the lesser-expensive options. Fortunately, a quick internet search led me to Ana White's website and plans for this play kitchen. As someone who has never built anything before, the plans seemed very doable. All of the brag posts were also inspirational and sold me on starting this project. I worked on this an hour or so after work for a couple of weeks, and then a few longer nights running up to Christmas Eve (always a bit of a procrastinator!). As neither my wife or I know how to sew, we decided to turn the space underneath the sink into a cabinet. The paint color was left over from painting our kitchen and family room, and we decided to stain the stove and counter tops. Overall, we are very pleased and proud with how this turned out, and our 2 year old loves playing with the set!