Community Brag Posts

What goes here?

This is the first time I've ever taken on a project of this scale. The pergola is 12 x 11, and I was able to get it all done for $235 by having Lowe's price match a lumber yard in the next town over. I skipped out on the fancy base covers because I'll eventually make those pretty with limestone stacking rock - and because the lumber for those alone would cost about $121.
Once the treated lumber seasons, I'll stain it a darker color.

I love this workbench! I added casters so I can move it around the garage, outside, wherever it's needed. I just took 4 inches off the bottom of the legs. My hubby is admiring my handy work and planning on making one for himself.

We had 2 empty closets in our 100 year old home. The custom shelves took a day to build and have worked amazingly for our organization.

This daybed was modified from the Farmhouse bed plans. I am still finishing the drawers, sanding, putty and paint.

We built this for our daughter's 6th birthday! Love how it turned out :D  As you can see we opted to leave the plywood backing off for the time being so she can use it as a doll house and play on both sides. When she grows out of the doll house phase we will either convert it to a book shelf, donate, or sell in a yard sale ... so many options!

     My husband and father-in-law built this crib over many weekends. They decided against using pine since it is soft. Instead they used maple and the materials cost far more than the $50-100 estimate. The finished project is beautiful and is lovingly referred to as the bomb shelter because it is so sturdy and heavy. 

     They made it so the mattress could be raised and lowered as well as easily converted into a toddler bed. They used the crib mattress as a starting point to adjust the plans to ensure there would be no gaps between the sides of the crib and the mattress. 

      They used a router to put a dado at the top and bottom of the sides so the slats fit into the slot instead of just butting against the top of the rail in order to minimize the number of nail holes and create a nicer fit. They used one solid piece of maple plywood at the ends of the crib because there is a lot of temperature variation where we live resulting in a lot of expansion and contraction and they wanted to make sure that didn't cause any gaps.  

This is made by using treated lumber and concrete deck piers. The genius of this bench is that there are no screws. It fits together like a puzzle and sits on concrete deck piers. I left it untreated for a bit and decided to let the piers stay gray. The original plans called for the piers to be stained black and a stain to be applied to the wood. I wanted to post this as inspiration but will add the link to the template for the wood pieces at a later time. 

With six people in our household, we were in desperate need of easily accessed storage for our off season clothes/gear.  This ended up being a perfect solution.  We customized shelf heights to fit the bins that we use for storage as well as made an area for our cat box (at the bottom right).  It's such a relief to finally have everything tucked away but easy to get at when we need it. 

Like many others have mentioned, I wanted a 36" high table so I could use it as a bar. Ana mentioned that it would be too wide at 15 degrees so perhaps 10, after busting out some trigonometry I found that 10 degrees would give you about a 16" base and 15 would give you a 24" base. So, 12.5 degrees it came to be if you want a 20" base.

Many have said it takes 4 2x2's, that definitely holds true with this modification.

Here are my measurements, otherwise the cuts and assembly are the same as the original:

All angles are now 12.5 degrees rather than 15.

The legs are 33 3/4" from end to end

The outside edges of the legs should come to 20 1/4" wide for the base.

The stretcher will stay the same 13 3/4" on the bottom length, just cut at 12.5 degrees.

The stretcher is now 7 3/8" up from the ground, I found it was easiest to measure 7 1/2" up along the inside of the legs and line the bottom of the stretcher up at this mark.

And that's it!

A tip I used was clamping 4 2x2's together to get all the legs even, this only works if you have a sliding compound miter saw. I also recommend doing the straight cuts first and then leave the saw set at 12 1/2 degrees until you finish the project, this will keep cuts consistent.

Other modifications I made were to shorten the depth to 16 1/2" and use 2x6's for the top, I needed a narrow table in the room. I also made the depth of the sawhorses only 15 inches so the top would have a 3/4" overhang in front and back, I think this cleaned up the look some.

These sturdy chairs are a wonderful replacement for plastic deck chairs! They are nice and heavy, and won't blow over in a storm! This project is a mix of Ana's Adirondack Chairs and the Simple Outdoor Lounge Chair. I combined ideas from the two plans to use the extra lumber we had left over from an outside project from last year. Left-over lumber included some 2x4 for the bottom frames, some 5/4 decking board for the seat, back, and arms, and a few balusters at the back. Most of the lumber was left over, so I only had to spend $20 for 2 boxes of Kreg screws and 2 pc 5/4 x 8 decking board. Finished with some left over exterior latex semi gloss paint. This was a fun weekend project - built the chairs on one day, and finished the sanding and painting the next day. My next project is a little outdoor table to go with them, and I have a few scraps left over to use for that. These chairs have received lots of compliments, and we've given Ana's web site name to several admirers. Ana, thank you for your wonderful plans!

A friend of mine got two baby chicks and needed something for them to live in. She also wanted to be able to move it around the yard so they could have freah grass to be on. It uses 2x4s, 3/4 plywood, chicken wire, and plastic roofing. It was a fun build.