Community Brag Posts

I was tired of having potting plants and soil stacked up at the end of my driveway taking away from the aesthetic of the gardens so I built myself a potting stand. I love the two tone although I wish I decided on the colours prior to assembling. It would have saved me a lot of masking.

Mary Wikene

DIY Adirondack Chair

This project was pretty dang easy. My husband and I whipped this out one weekend and were pleasantly surprised with the outcome. It now sits in our dining room and we LOVE it!! We used Rust-o-leum's Kona stain and it could not have been more perfect of a color. We used a brush to apply in sections and wiped it off immediately. Before staining we beat it with chains, hammers, screws, etc. And we also scraped it up and gouged it out with screw drivers, crowbars, and any other items we could find. Be sure and sand it down really well. We finished it off with a matte finish polyurethane. Thanks for the designs! We are on to table number 2 now! Jordi

1/2 ' x 18" black pipe was used along with 1/2 ' flanges. The wood was re-purposed 2x6' pine lumber that had been used for pallets, that would have been thrown away. The boards were joined with a Kreg Jig, It will house my stereo components.

For my first woodworking project, I foolishly decided to build a rabbit hutch without plans for my daughters new Easter Bunny. So I literally scratched some ideas on my wood working bench and started going to work. I did some construction over a decade ago, but never attempted to build any furniture before, so I'm pretty happy with how this came out.

I spent a few days researching various rabbit cages and for our place we needed something that was ascetically pleasing and functional as it was going in our living room. I got some ideas from the web and decided the best thing for us would be to have an entry ramp, 2 sets of barn doors for each level (for easy cleaning) and an open roof. We went with linoleum floors since she's already litter trained. The floors could easily be modified to add 1/2" wire mesh if we decide to change things down the line. Also, we chose an espresso finish with silver hardware to accent the wire mesh

I pretty much crashed and burned on the staining as I've never done that before, but it ended up looking ok after all. I did a light sanding, but will probably invest in a planer and jointer to get my wood in better shape before assembling in the future. Also, I'll probably lightly dab some stain on ends of wood before final assembly as it made it difficulty trying to hide the white pine with the dark stain.

Other cages I saw ran around $200-$350.00 so i don't feel so bad about the cost. It's really the time that it took learning and making mistakes. I'm sure if I had plans I could of cut my time in 1/2.

Total Cost came out to around $150.00 but probably would of been cheaper if I had some plans to go by. I probably wasted a few 2x2s and accidentally mis-cut a scrap piece of 1/4"plywood which added another $16.00 to the bottom line.

Here's a breakdown of my total cost.

Hardware - $30.00
Includes 5 latches, 4 sets of hinges (8 total) and a 3' piano hinge

Stain - $8.00

Linoleum Tile @ ¢.69 sq ft - $16

Brushes, Stain Rags - $5.00

Screws - $6.00

Wire Mesh Roll $30.00
Needed 2 rolls at $15.00 each. I used 1" Wire Mesh measuring 2'x15'

Total Wood $50.00-$60
I used 2x3's for the legs - 2 @ 8' - $2.00 each ($4.00)
probably 15-20 2x2's - $1.52 each - can't remember how many I used to be honest ($30.00)
and a few 1x6's for the Doors - $2.00 each ($6.00)
Sheet of 1/4 plywood - $12.00

A friend needed a raised garden bed for her husband who is in a wheel chair. I searched and found the VegTrug's. It took a lot of trial and error. I based it off Williams Sonoma's pictures. I wouldn't of attempted this with out a plan if it weren't for Ana's website.

After 3 years of absolutely no closet organization, my boyfriend and I decided it was time. This was our first build together and my boyfriend was amazed that it was so easy to actually build something from wood. We already had 6 baskets that lived all around the room so they needed a home and that's when we found Ana's Laundry Basket Dresser. Knowing that we wanted to hide our dirty laundry in the closet, we found that the plywood box design in the closet made for some very dark corners and little arm room so we needed to modify the plans some. Instead of the plywood we used 1"x4" furring strips to make an open framework for our baskets. It's plenty strong enough and allows light to reach the back corners with the added bonus of looking like custom closet organization.

I built this step stool for friend, and a tiny version for my own dolls house. I had expected difficulties with the angled parts, but it went together very easily. I stained both of them with a vinegar/steel wool mix, painted with homemade chalkpaint. At last I sanded them for a distressed look and coated them with brown finishing wax.

My 13-year-old daughter asked me about making a stool, with the main requirement being it had to have a round seat.  So I turned to this ana-white.com to see if I could find something that we could do and found the plans for the three-legged stool. The first one we made with the dimensions specified in the plans but she thought it was too short.  So we made another one with longer legs and a larger diameter seat.

Cost: $45
Made this bench smaller than the plan so it measures 48" X 18". Using it in a spare bedroom so it will eventually get stained to match the wood furniture.