Community Brag Posts

My husband made this from ordinary pine, modifying it slightly. Eventually he will add doors to the middle. It was spray stained with Minwax polyshades. He took a couple of months on it cause he got busy doing other things but finally finished it!

This is my first furniture build!!! I needed a narrow cabinet (from the wall) and found the plans on your site from Shanty2Chic. I LOVE this cabinet and I LOVE the Shanty girls along with you Ana! I finally put the doors on after I found the handles at a restoration store. I needed to make something 42.5" wide to fit under the mirror so I adjusted the length & height measurements of the original cabinet. This cabinet is 42.5W x 43H x 13D.

We just put in a pool and I needed something to hide a pair of outdoor speakers. I used Klipsh AW-525 speakers.

Basically I raised the bottom of the planter enough to fit the speaker under and had to add a few framing pieces to secure the speaker mount to. The mount attaches to a vertical board and the weight rests on a horizontal board. The wiring comes up from below.

The front panel uses vinyl mesh from Sailrite.com to hide the speaker but allow sound out. Imm planning to hang it with magnets if it doesn't distort sound too much.

I was given an old window that was going into the trash from an old house in Key West that was being remodeled and decided I wanted to use the window as a door on a cabinet. These plans were very thorough and easy to follow. I modified the measurements to fit the window and am really happy with how it turned out. I added some trim to the top and bottom and used beadboard for the back to fancy it up a bit. I painted it in Sea Mist by Behr and distressed it by hand. This is my first post on this site. Thanks, Ana, for making this possible for me!

We needed a coop for our son's chicken Penny as she was big enough to move outside. We wanted one that would hold at least 2 chickens as we plan on getting a second soon. We found the plans for the a frame chicken coop here and the next day my husband and 5 yr old son got to work. Took them about 3 hours from start to finish and it turned out great. He plans on spraying the whole thing with outside deck sealer to protect the wood and had some trim on the edges to protect the kids from getting scratched by the chicken wire.

I have a pet ferret that has little room to run around. So I seen this rabbit/ferret cage at the pet store. It was about $150 or so. So I took a pic of it on my phone, and found the Google Sketch app, and watched some videos, and now I have plans for the cage. Some 2x2's, 1x8's, plywood, chicken wire, and some locks and hinges for the ramp an lid.... Still tweaking it, but hopefully it will work out.

Inspired by Ana White project, but assembled with tencions and mortises, without screws.

Built my wife a bench and coat rack for our mudroom also a bench for garage. 

Made of old fence rail (the dark pieces) and cheap 2x4s and 1x12s .

This is not as stable as I hoped, but for an afternoon's project that got all those tools off the workshop floor, it's not bad. I will add a diagonal brace at the back later. Much later.

NOTE: My engineer friend notes that 2 braces at the rear, below the bottom shelf and below the top shelf, would minimize side-to-side wobbling, and 2 braces front to back, both under the bottom shelf, would minimize the front-to-back wobbling, They could be a scrap of plywood, a 1x6 or wider scrap. Just nail them in two or more places on each of the ladders and they make the structure more rigid. Screw them in if you want a shelf unit you can disassemble.

TIPS:
If you are using pockethole screws, start the screws in all the holes before you put the crosspieces on. Stop when you see the tip of the screw come through the first piece.

Clamp scrap 2x4 to the uprights to hold the crosspieces in place as you drill.

To get the shelves in place, lean the ladders against each other and attach the bottom and top boards on one side. Than pull the other ladder out as far as it needs to go and screw that side of the shelves in place.

Don't try this without clamps.

It could have been cheaper if I had used all reclaimed fence 2x4s, and if my errand runner had bought cheaper 1x12s. He bought top-grade when #2 would have worked for half the price,

This is my first furniture building project and I was initially nervous that I have taken up more than I can handle. But things turned out just fine. My wife said she would pick this table if it were in a store and that made this project a success. My wife and I both like the distressed look and nothing in the stores impressed us enough. Three weekends worth of effort and we have a gleaming new table exactly as we wished. So, if you're a beginner like me, do not fret. This is a good starter project if you have the right tools.

The basic specs were from this site but I had to change it to suit my size. Also, for the top I used 2X6's throughout except the center piece which is 2X12. I liked this look a little better. I do not know how much work Kreg Jig will save as I have no experience doing it the other way. Kreg jig is not very common and I did not find it in Home Depot. Lowes carried it. With this design note that you cannot put any chairs on the smaller side of the table as the bottom stretchers will obstruct you.

I had to use a hand planer on many occasions to level things out, especially between the table top planks and the breadboards. With construction grade lumber there will always be warps and twists, so this is something you need to plan for.

Now to the build part,
Top is all 2X6 with center piece 2X12. Rest as per Ana's plans. Construction grade lumber - Douglas Fir.
I did not sand too much - used 120 Grit throughout - did not sand with anything finer than that and it turned out ok. I did this to retain the feel of the grains. It was fun distressing it. We used hammer, chains and nails, but the best effect was from chiseling on the sides. Practice on spare wood first.

For Finish I used Dark Walnut from Rustoleum. One single coat. Then I wiped on Minwax Red Chestnut on top and quickly wiped it off. That gave it a pop. I used 5 coats of Rustoleum Poly on top. Rustoleum makes a huge difference to your project time as it dries much quicker than minwax. Also one single coat of stain did the job as advertised. Note that Rustoleum Poly is milky in color, but dries clear.

Good luck to your project and hope this helped.

My sister was in love with my 4x4 truss table i made and needed a patio table so we decided to take one day to make 2 tables, one for each. We convinced both daddys to take care of the kids while we made the table by telling them the tables were gonna have beer coolers inside! Attaching the to of the table was a lot a job. If you plan of doing this you really want to have a kreg jig. It works well, we love it. I made a bench to go with it. I made my how plan for it.

Using the instructions (with some slight redesign to accomodate the wife's requirements) I built two Versaille planters. The timber I used was offcuts from the local timber yard (£18) plus some bits off of old pallets. The nobs on top pf the legs were wooden drawer handles (£10) Screws and paint from the workshop. The overall size is a 21inch cube with the height increased to 23inches with the wooden knobs.

Thanks for the basic info it made the job so much easier.