Community Brag Posts

We wanted to replace the vented / painted bi-fold closet doors in our Master Suite with something that was warmer and more consistent with the decorating motif of the house.  We priced out various wood bi-fold doors and were shocked at the $350 - $600 price range of what was available.   We decided that building them ourselves was a much better choice.

The frames are made from 1” Knotty Pine and the panels are from ¼” Knotty Pine.   Frames were made to fit and assembled w/ Kreg screws & Glue.  Rabbet channels were cut w/ the router and the panels were brad nailed & glued.

It was finished w/ the same stain used on our Knotty Pine ceilings / walls and finished w/ a satin varnish for a perfect match to our house.

This was a very straightforward, quick & inexpensive alternative to purchasing expensive bi-fold doors.   

The doors took about 15 hours to build / sand and 10 hours to finish.   Total cost was around $100. 

We wanted a round table that would seat a full Monopoly game. To do this we needed about a 5' diameter tabletop.  The base was made consistent with the plans.  

A few tips on the base:

1. Get your angles as close to 45° as you can.  Otherwise, there will be much sanding and puttying in your future.  
2. If you want to hide your lag screw like I did, I used a spade bit to recess an area for the screw head.  Then I glued in a plug made from dowel and sanded flush.  

If you want to make a round tabletop, here is what I did (there may be better methods).  Keep in mind this was for a ~60" diameter table, I was assuming that the perimeter arc pieces would be about 4.5" wide and that I would cut the inner circle at a 50" diameter.

1. Picture 1 - I built two 5' slabs of (7) 2x4s pocket-holed together.  
2. Picture 2 - Then I cut two pieces from each slab that would later make up the 90° "pie slice" pieces.  Make sure to remove the screws that will be in the way your saw blade. Also, you just have to concern yourself with the angle since the radius will be dealt with later.  There is a lot of wood waste with this method, but I think it avoided headaches. 
3. Picture 3 - I assembled (screwed and glued) the "pie pieces"to the cross pieces. The length of the cross pieces don't matter much since they will also be to cut to a specified radius.  Since I would be cutting a 50" diameter circle, the large cross piece had to be at least 50" and the two small pieces had to be at least 22.25" (subtracting the 2x6 width).  
   1. Picture 3 - I mounted my router to a piece of MDF and drilled a hole at the necessary distance to cut a 50" diameter circle. This distance is 25" + half of the bit diameter.  Since I used a 1/2" straight bit, my point was 25.25" from the center of the router bit.  I screwed this jig to the center of the tabletop assembly so the router could pivot and cut a circle.  As for logistics, I rested this assembly on some scrap wood and kneeled on the tabletop as I was cutting it.  It took a large number of passes with the router since I was cutting through 1.5" of material. 
4. Picture 4 - The perimeter pieces required some time and geometry. I found that I would need (8) 23" 2x8 pieces (the 23" is approximate because I was a little off for some reason, though I can't recall why).  From those pieces, I used the same router jig to cut the perimeter arc pieces. You will need to make two new radius holes in teh jig to accomplish what you need.  To cut the inner arc you need a hole set at 25" - half of the bit diameter (24.75" for me).  To cut the outer arc, I used a hole that was 29 5/8" from the center of the router bit.  You may need to do some fine tuning to these pieces to get them to fit correctly, but for me it pretty minor.  I trimmed a couple pieces with a miter saw but that was it. 
5. The rest is screws and glue. 

This was a fun project. Easy instructions great piece of furniture. It is very sturdy. I'm a beginner at DIY wood projects so this was a rewarding project.

I've been drooling over those custom closet organizers for years, but they were either too expensive, not well made or some combination of not right for us. So seeing Ana's master closet plan really sent my imagination soaring. My challenge. My master closet is a small walk-in 5'x7' so I did have to do some adjusting. I love having a place for shoes and sweaters. One of my favorite parts is the continuous top shelf that connects all the parts together forming a big 'U'. I used my Kreg jig to connect each of those pieces. Anyway, thanks Ana White for the inspiration.

Built with 2x4 and 2x6.  Simple stain brushed on with a sponge and let stand a few minutes and wipe off.  

Project assembled with pocket holes.

Hand-made vegetable cupboard. Fun and easy project.

I started with Ana's raised garden beds, but due to limited funds, opted to cut down the size of the beds to be able to use a smaller amount of lumber.

I also used 2x4's screwed together instead of 4x4 posts for the legs.

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

It was time to replace our 12 year old rectangular coffee table. I used the corona coffee table plans with a few modifications.

I love having this new addition! Freed up space in my small shop and now it’s more functional and organized. I followed the plans with modifications in the leaves using scrap 1x’s (which I may decide later to change to 2x4s but I had 1x’s on hand) instead of the brackets and then the extra 1x’s holding on the leaves so they would fall flat to the sides. Love it!

Here is one of the new chairs I'm building for our new fire pit.  They are made out of four pressure treated 2x6s (and one 2x4), and have a comfortable 18" seat depth, 19" seat width, and 110 degree angle for the backrest.  

More information, and a link to our plans are located on our blog, FamousArtisan.com

Found this on the website and had to build it. Turned out perfectly.