Community Brag Posts

I showed my wife the Laundry Dresser featured on Ana White's website and she asked if I could make one for her, but not quite so tall. I also turned the orientation to fit our laundry room space. I used primarily oak from recycled pallets to build the Laundry Basket Dresser. She wanted a work space on top, so folded laundry, empty baskets, etc. all have a temporary resting place depending on the day. From start to finish, it took me about 6 hours. She plans to stain the piece at some point, but its already in use, so I'm not 100% sure that will ever happen until we move or something. ;-) Great idea and laundry room organization!

I took the plans for ana white's benchwright coffee table and created this end table.  This is an exact replica of the Pottery Barn benchwright end table.  The wood was distressed by hand and finished with dye, dark walnut gel stain and three coats of satin poly. 

- Brad 

I've been wanting to build a "plank" style farmhouse table for a long time. I used metal corner brackets to allow for easy removal of legs of the table. However, I found the corner brackets quite hard to work with. I think they're probably sturdier than just pocket holes, so I guess that's good.

I used 100-year old barn wood and it looked so beautiful. BUT...I have a two year old and I'm expecting another child soon, so I wanted to plug up some of the gaps in the wood (like old nail holes that went the entire way through the boards) and put something down to preserve the quality of the wood.

After researching a lot of ways to fill in the gaps in wood tables, I tried a few things.

First I tried clear silicone. I think this would have been a great option if the holes were just a little bit smaller. It ended up just looking like plastic in the spaces, though. So I scooped that out and then tried wood filler. The wood filler looked terrible under polyurethane, though, and no matter how much I tried to get them to match, it just looked like a different color. Finally, I ended up using painter's tape on the bottom of the table under slats and holes and filling them slowly with polyurethane (I used an eyedropper for this task!). It worked really well. I should also say that I sanded the already planed boards as much as possible to reduce the gaps between boards.

I'm really pleased with my new table!

I used only poly on the top. The wood is its natural color.

Thanks for the idea, Ana!

I made this table to go next to an outdoor grill to be used as a food prep area or just a surface for holding ingredients (instead of using the deck railing!). The top is stainless steel which fits tightly over 2 3/4" pieces of plywood laminated together. The bar/handle in front is made out of galvanized pipe. All wood was treated.

Legs - 4x4 posts
Bottom shelf - 1x6's
Sides - 1x4's
Top - 2 pieces of 3/4" plywood laminated together with a stainless steel top (custom fit) over top
Towel bar - galvanized pipe (cut and threaded to size at Lowe's), floor flanges and 90 degree elbows

I found out what the rack in the drive up area of my local Lowes was!
I often see piles of wood and sheets or plywood and such sitting there, but I never paid it much mind-turns out its a clearance rack of sorts they call it the "cull" rack, because they are culling the items from inventory that may be cut, chipped marked etc.
So I was at the store buying something for my Bocce Court and saw this pile of 16ft 2x4's and saw they were only $20 and there was 8 of them- so I picked em up for a "future project".
Needless to say they weren't the truest boards but they worked well enough for something like this. I had to buy a 2x6 to attach the top to because 2x4's aren't wide enough to give proper clearance as the plans showed(and I really didn't want to reinvent the wheel on this) so i bit the bullet and bought a $3 2"x6"x8'
Now if you notice I used all 2x4's for this instead of 2x6 so I adjusted the top to 14 1/8 to accommodate 4 2x4 pieces separated by spacers I use when installing wood floors. I made no change to the seat dimensions, but there is 4- 2x4's vice 3- 2x6's.
Great plan- perfect for more seating on my weekly bocce nights and they hold in excess of 600 lbs easily for those concerned about load limits.
(Note for those curious, that is my Bocce court in the background, it is 10'x60' and built with pressure treated 4x6's and 2x4's and a whole bunch of DG and crushed oyster shells.)

We are remodeling our 3 bedroom house into a 4 bedroom. In doing so, my youngest is getting the smaller room. We decided to go with a Murphy bed to allow more play time space. I do not particularly like the fact that this bed doesn’t sit off the ground but overall love the simplicity of making it. We turned it horizontal and just love the overall product. I can mot wait to make something else from this site!

Tams

Plans for this coop were fantastic. It was a lot of work, but really fun to build.  As hard as I tried to keep the cost down, it cost probably close to $300 in materials, but it is well worth it compared to the quality of similar priced premade coops.  I did not want the garden bed, so I enclosed the run fully with hardware cloth. I also added a 2" lip around the cutout in the floor so they wouldn't push all of the bedding down the hole. 

With another baby boy arriving in August, my one and three year olds are moving to a "big boy" room. My oldest decided he wanted a bunk bed and as they both are obsessed with tractors, when I saw the "John Deere Tractor Bunk Bed" plan, I was sold.

We would be needing a twin sized bunk bed though not a toddler. I used the classic bunk bed plans and simply modified them to suit our needs. I moved the ladder to the front, added a rail on the bottom bunk and added a small ladder to the side for my one year old to climb into the bottom bunk.

Once the the frame of the bed was complete, I added the tractor accessories. A couple of storage cubby shelves with fabric baskets for toy tractors which act as stairs up to the ladder and make the tractor bucket at the front. Also, the wheels which are made from joined 1x6s as I find plywood hard to sand and paint to the quality of finish I like. A cab & roof from 1x4s framed together. A side mirror that I decoupaged a picture of another tractor on. I used push lights for the headlights as well as a reading light above each bed (they're on timers so they'll turn themselves off). A steering wheel (play equipment access from toys r us). Also, I built and mounted by the head of both beds a "flat wall book holder" so they would have somewhere to store a few books.

My boys and I are fairly new to building so I spent a lot of time planning and measuring to ensure it would all come together in the end. It paid off because it all went smoothly (even with "help" from my boys). It's not perfect but they're very happy with the result. We also built a John Deere themed "Just my size closet" and even finished with over a month to spare before the new baby arrives! :)

Just want to say a quick thank you to Ana both for the amazing plans and also the inspiration to take on these projects. The time spent with my boys building as well as the resulting treasures are priceless and I would have never realized what we were capable of had I not stumbled upon your website and been so inspired by you and everything you've accomplished. Thank you!

My husband used your plans to make this for our pet chicken that we hatched in a homemade incubator.  I painted it though!!! 

This was fairly easy for my first project and has already received a ton of compliments from friends and family that can't believe I made it.

Finally turned our bedroom from college dorm looking to elegant family looking with just this one piece.

The Kreg Jig is an amazing tool. Now that I have it, I'll be looking for more projects to get to use it.

I changed the plans just slightly. I used 2x4's for framing and enlaged the shed somewhat and added a floor. I also used a different type of roof to handle the amount of rain in my area.

We adopted two puppies: Blueberry and Pink, and needed a dog house. I showed my bf the post of the East Fork Dog House on this website for inspiration. He winged the basic construction as he's a carpenter guy. Our foster children helped paint it, and the puppies love it (chewed the corners of it already).