Community Brag Posts

Living in a cottage on a lake during the summers, I needed a picnic table that would take care of a big family so I built the Octagonal picnic table on Ana's site, however with a twist.

Since we are under a bunch of trees, I wanted to be able to scrub the table easily and not have to do any maintenance on it over the long term. So I built the top and the benches using Trex. Yes, it was more expensive but the result (if I do say so myself) was incredible.

Since Trex isn't as structural as 2 x 6's, I reinforced the seats using 2x4s laid horizontally underneath the seam of each of the two bench pieces. I also drove a few extra screws through the Trex benches along the 2 x 4's to further strengthen seating area.

Aesthetically, I didn't care for the 1/2 inch spacing for the table top and benches so I reduced it to 1/4 inch and cut the length of the Trex accordingly. I used decking screws that exactly matched the color of the Trex.

I did take the advice of one of the former builder's of this table and staggered the legs to make it easier to get in and out. That was a worth while suggestion.

The only 'warning' I was given about using Trex was that it could get 'hot' if in the sun for long periods during the day during the summer. This table is in the shade almost all the time, but having said that I have read that the Trex as decking gets no hotter than treated lumber stained the same color.

This is a great design at it was lots of fun to build.

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.

My daughter-in-law needed a compact sewing table, and this plan fit the bill perfectly! I did use 2 x 2 legs instead of 1 x 2s. This makes the table considerably more stable if you plan to use this table with your machine. If you do use the 2 x 2s for legs, you will need to widen your table top dimensions from 15 1/2" to 17" to accommodate the larger diameter of the legs. I also used a piano hinge for each drop leaf. They weren't much more expensive than the hinges listed in the plans, but again, they provide more stability (imho).

I wanted to show the locking mechanism for the legs in detail. I love these as they hold the legs in place when the drop leaf is down, and they pop into place when the leaf is in use. Called "folding leg fitting" it is part S-149L at $3.65 each at the following link:

http://www.hardwaretree.com/proddetail.php?prod=S-149L

When my daughter-in-law received her gift on Christmas Eve, she wouldn't even let me keep it for another day or two so I could touch-uppaint some spots...she loves it.

Thank you, Ana, for the wonderful plans!!

Really fun build! I changed the plans a bit and made the spindles go all the way to the bottom. Made it more open for the dog. Took a while to finish since I would tinker when I had the extra time! Turned out great with the two tone, stained from and top with white spindles and door. Thanks for the plans!

Inspired from a sign we saw at Home Goods however it was half the size and twice the price!  Ask for a how to.

Queen sized storage bed in width for  a full sized mattress. I wanted this against the wall, so i put both sets of drawers on one side and hinged the footboard for access underneath. 

A good friend of mine, a pastor of a local church, asked me to build a pulpit for their recently finished church up in the countryside of Grenada. She showed me a picture of what she had in mind and based on that, I drew my own plan in SketchUp, and then built it out of Yellow Pine boards and Plywood.

Note to the dimensions:
After I drew the plan, and just when I was at the lumberyard to have the plywood and boards cut, I thought I might have had it estimated not wide enough, so I decided on the spot to make it 2" wider and the top panel 2" wider and deeper too. So if you'd like to build based on my plans, please consider if it's wide enough for your purposes.

This is what I used (corrected measurements here):

2x 2x8 26" long YP Boards (Base)
1x 18 1/2" x 6 1/2" Plywood (Base Support Panel)
1x 26" x 16" Plywood (Top)
1x 18 1/2" x 9" Plywood (Shelf Panel)
2x 45" x 9 1/2" Plywood (Side Panels ) - these are cut angled, see plans
1x 44 1/2" Wood Moulding (for the "stopper" on the top panel, and the "back" of the top shelf.

this was a fun build had to tweak the plans a little but turned out great!

We had a very limited area for these to fit, so my hubby had to change the dimensions to fit these square baskets. We needed enough spots for our family of 10! I LOVE THEM, thanks; Ana!

I have tried all sorts of nest boxes. No one ever used them. I decided to make the one from Anna White's site. I used joinery to attach the various pieces. The best thing of all: I find girls sitting in the boxes and take eggs from them. It really is awesome. I got a photo with real eggs and you can also see the wooden eggs to entice them to try it out. Thank you so much! I will build another one for the other side of the the wall.

This was my very first build and I loved it. I used rough cut oak that I got from my grandparents woods when it was destroyed in a storm. I spent a few hours planing and sanding but it was time well spent. I plan on making the fort bed next.

The plans were pretty simple to follow, I did change the way I set the bottom shelf in because it wasn't very stable and I was worried it would eventually dip in the middle. I screwed some pieces of scrap wood onto the back to hold it together better and then built a ledge for it to sit on around the bottom. After that I screwed it into the and BAM.. much more stable..