Community Brag Posts

So we couldnt find any bed we really wanted for my son, and this one was perfect.
I used the wood one step up from the whitewood at HD, which had too many knots for this, and was .75 more. Still had to pick thru the 2x4 and 2x6s but the quality of the wood was much better.

After seeing what another bragger posted, i raised the posts to 72" instead of 66", which allowed for an additional 2x6 at the top. The mattress stayed at the same height, but know i sleep better thinking he wont roll off.

Lesson learned from this: Sand the primer!!! i never knew to do that before in my life and wow, what a difference.

Painting Steps were:
Sand wood,
prime, ( Used Zissner BIN)
Sand primer with 220
Wipe with Tack cloth
Paint ( Used Behr Ultra White Semi Gloss and Behr Par Four Green Semi Gloss)
Sand lightly with 320 grit
wipe with Tack
Paint again.

The two end pieces and the deck were assembled in the garage, but the cross pieces and steps were built in the bedroom.

Im thinking of creating a mini gate where he climbs up just for sleeping that i could put in once he is in his bed to really prevent rolling... trust me.. he rolls everywhere. May be to the height of the top 2x4, halway the length of the opening, and use dowels or something.

Note the second picture didnt have the 2x6 ladder step installed yet.

Thanks Ana for the plans! My son never wants to leave the bed!

This is the 2nd step stool I built, the first was for my daughter and I just followed the plans. Built this for my friends son Hayden, decided to add the H for his name. It was a tag team build, I built it and painted it and my wife did the sanding, distressing and wax sealer. 

I was on a mission to find just the right buffet to house Grandma's china and infrequently used serving dishes.  Countless searches in second hand stores, hours scouring Offer-up and Craigslist, and even some regretable purchases all led to the building of this magnificent buffet. I found a build plan for the planked wood sidboard, printed it and started in. I had always planned on painting it and wanted a rustic look so decided on budget friendly lumber. The frame and top of the unit is made from fir and the drawers and doors from pine. The door insets and the back of the unit is pine beadboard. The top and interior of the buffet is finished in GF Antique Walnut Gel Stain. I used a wipe-on polyurathane on the interior of the buffet and the inside of the drawers.  I choose an amazing shade of red for the exterior of the buffet:  GF Milk Paint in Holiday Red. It was my first experience with milk paint and it was a pleasure. It went on so smooth and brush-stroke free. After two coats of Holiday Red milk paint I applied a single coat of GF High Performance Top Coat in satin finish. This really enhanced the color of the Holiday Red and served as a base for a glaze application.  I mixed the GF Antique Walnut Gel Stain with ten percent mineral spirits and glazed the entire buffet. I got into all the nooks, crannies and knots and left a thin coating on the face of the unit. I loved the buffet before the glaze, but now I was head over heals. The buffet was finally finished off with two coats of High Performance Top coat. Mission accomplished!

I really needed an entry way system that was easy to corral all of my 3 boys shoes/coats/crap, etc. . . and I LOVED this plan! I messed up on the frame, so just left it off, and decided that I didn't need the back either. I painted little chalkboards on the side of each boys cubby.

I'm fairly certain that this isn't made perfectly, but it's perfect for us! This was my 2nd project and I'm really super psyched about it!

This was made as a present my mom's birthday. I found a good sized mirror at the thrift shop which was perfect for the project. I adhered it to some plywood, added trim around it, bulked up the top and bottom with multiple layers and types of trim and added some crown molding to the top. The finish is "A Day at the Jewellers" by Valspar with a Red Mahogany stain/glaze over top.

Here's a queen headboard we just completed for our guest bedroom.  

It only took an afternoon to build this simple yet stunning headboard, and then a little more time to paint, distress, and wax it.  

More information is available on our site at FamousArtisan.com

This was a very fun and one of the easiest projects I have made from Ana's plans! This makes me want to see if I can make matching chairs as well!

If you have seen my other projects, you know that I try to keep the lumber cost of my projects as close to free as possible. Living on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, pallets are not free, so I did have to pay $2 for each pallet, being VERY choosy about the slats being all the same size and straight. The hardest part of the project was taking the pallets apart! Check the blog link for more details.

I used 1 1/2 pallets for this project, and the following tools:

Jigsaw (to cut the ends off the pallet)

Pry-bar (to loosen the slats from the center of the pallet)

Miter saw

Drill

Table Saw (ripping the 2x4 sections of the pallet, to make the legs and spacers of the table)

Palm sander

Modified the plans to be only 3 drawers which saved on weight and hardware. Used reclaimed 100+ year old barn wood for the top, adding lots of character.

I built this for my daughters house warming gift.

Followed the farmhouse the design but with my ite dimensions and 4x4 legs. Also painted base and blue/gray to pop through when sanding eyese.

This was an excellent set of plans and the finished product looks great in our home.

I shortened the legs to 20 inches and left the lower rung off.
It lives in the playroom and is just the right height for our sons desk.

I followed the basic plans but adapted it to fit in my cabin.  The whole unit is 82" high by 126" wide.  I also put in more drawers and made the fronts in a shaker style. I used 2x4's that I ripped down to 2x2's and 3/4 inch birch plywood.  I trimmed out the birch with 1" pine boards. I sanded the whole unit, primed with an oil primer and painted 2 coats of latex from General Paint in Grayling.   I don't know how many hours I put into it.  A lot.  Probably around 80.  Mostly by myself.  My husband helped with getting the 4x8 sheets of plywood through the table saw and occaisonally when I needed a 3rd hand to pursuade some wood to do my bidding.  I love how it turned out.  Tons of much needed storage in my cabin.

We modified these plans to make this, liked the sides.

I know, I know...Where are the legs? Unfortunately, I have to store this until December while our multi-family mountain house is being constructed. This way I can store it up against a wall and save a lot room in storage for more Ana White projects. FYI - The legs will be white 2x4's about 29.5 inches tall. For the top I used 1x4 cedar slats spaced 1/4 inch apart. As for the painted white frame, I used treated pine. Why spend money on nice cedar if I am just going to paint over it, right? The contrast of the white and natural cedar was appealing to me for some reason. I used Thompson's clear wood protector/water sealer on the slats to prolong the natural cedar. BTW, if you can build the simple outdoor bench you can definitely take on this project. The two are not very different. I'll have to take pictures of the finished table with legs when I haul these up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and upload them again. Thanks again Ana!

I had to a quick conversion from the original plans as we get metric wood sizes so decided to use the following:-
Desk frame: 44 x 94
Desk frame front: 44 x 69
Desk Top: 32 x 144
I drew up new plans to fit my 1500mm space I needed the desk to fill, with the new wood sizes.
The purchase of the Kreg Jig was my best investment as it made construction so easy.
I finished the desk off in Antique Oak after wanting to add a little Antique White to it, but got scared that I would mess it up!
Total cost for wood and finishing materials was R1,500.

This was a fun and quick build!  Because I had an existing bed frame (and didn't want to headboard to stick out past the mattresses) I narrowed this by eliminating (1) tongue and groove board and changing the "legs" to 2 x 6 boards instead of the 2 x 4's in the plan -- overall width ended up at 76-1/2".  Before framing out the tongue and groove, I cut the exposed tongue off of the last board so the frame would attach better. After getting it all together, I wished I had used a 1 x 4 (or perhaps even a 2x4) as the very top piece so it hung over the moulding more.  I painted it with Old-Fashioned Milk Paint in Tavern Green and sealed that with Howard's Citrus Shield.  The wax turned it a little too John Deere green so I'm thinking I'll go back with a Burnt Umber Wax to darken the color a little.  Overall this was a great project that got me back in Dad's wood shop and refueled my love of building things.  I'm searching out my next project now.