Community Brag Posts

I found Ana's website in my search for the desk plans, and in the process found many other wonderful plans I want to try. My goal is to make a sawhorse desk for my new home office. I need to learn all proper woodworking skills, however.

Therefore, I decided to start with this birdhouse project, which was a joy for me since I have a fascination with photographing birdhouses wherever I go. I also have fond memories of making birdhouses with my mother when I was a little girl. She did all the cutting and nailing, and I sanded and painted.

This project brought back happy memories, and my mom got a kick out of seeing photos of the finished results.

In addition, today I had the wonderful opportunity to photograph my own birdhouses!

Chicken Coop Built by Dan

Built this from a couple of the plans on here and ideas I have seen around the web. This is the very first project I did and with plans from Ana White I found it pretty easy to get through the whole thing. I built this to be bar height and now that it is done I might cut it down to be regular table height just because I didn't realize how big it would actually be. But first I will build a couple chairs and a bench to go along with it.

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,

I've been collecting small flat rocks off the road every time I take the dog for a walk. Unfortunately my grout cracked, I probably used the wrong type. Anyone who can tell me what I should have used instead? Suggestions very welcome, as I might try this again.

My husband, Daughter and I built this loft bunkbed for our seven-year-old granddaughter‘s birthday. It turned out wonderful and she squealed when she saw it! Thanks so much for your online plans.

This was the nursery armoire design we used. My husband modified it slightly. Beautiful isn't it.

I built these two end tables from the rustic x end table plans. I tweaked the original plan to make them smaller. I only used 4 - 2x6's for the top instead of using 5, and I used 2 - 2x6's for the bottom shelf instead of using the 2 - 1x12's. My top is 20x22.5 and the base is 18x18.

Did a couple modifications but this turned out great and she loved it. Now we wait until spring so we can stain it.  

I built this desk as part of redesigning my homeschool room, and made a few customizations to better fit our needs.  It's taller and deeper than the plans, which allowed for a larger work opening for a larger computer.  It also gave me much needed extra storage space.  

The cabinet is made from 3/4" and 1/4" PureBond birch plywood cut down to size using my Kreg Rip-Cut.  The frame is built from pine 1x2s and 1x1s.  The three cabinet doors are pine 1x6s and 1x2s joined together with biscuits, and trimmed to the correct size on the table saw.  Because the secretary desk is deeper than the plan and the mail slots are small, I finished with stain and polyurethane prior to assembly.  This saved a lot of frustration of trying to stain in tight spaces.

Thank you for the plans, Ana!

After completing the table and being very happy with it, I had an overabundance of confidence making this bench. That probably is why it was so frustrating when things didn't go so well.

I made a few errors but two really stick out to me. The first was making the pedestals too much like the table pedestals. I screwed and glued an extra piece of wood on top of the bench pedestals (just like there is on the table) before I returned to the plans. This was not an easy fix and involved crowbars, chisels and cutting the heads off of stripped wood screws. Lesson: READ THE PLAN!

The second error relates to why the bench is a shade or two darker than the table. We used the same can of stain, but neglected to use wood conditioner. It appears that the wood conditioner (or our failure to mix the stain well enough) on the table made the stain much lighter than we expected. We have since fallen in love with the table's color; however, the bench came out the color we had originally expected for the table, which is much darker. We are going to do a test at some point to determine whether it was the wood conditioner or just the poor mixing that lightened the table. One other possible explanation is that we got the wood from a different place. This wood did seem a bit softer, in case that makes a difference. As a result of this color difference we are going to literally sit on it (the bench) for a while and decide whether we will strip and re-stain the table. It seems easier to re-do the table darker than lighten the bench since all we would need to remove is the poly. We're not in a hurry though. We might end up liking it well enough like we did the table. The bench almost matches our son's highchair, so it almost looks intentional. Lesson: TEST THE STAIN FIRST!

Fixes and stain-color aside, the bench was not terribly difficult to make and the plans (when I bothered to read them) were very easy to follow. I'm looking forward to bringing these lessons to the next project. My wife is requesting Adirondack chairs. Fortunately for us both, Mrs. White has shared some very good looking chair plans. Stay tuned.