Community Brag Posts

Our 6 month old is crawling now and we had to hurry up and baby proof the house. As an added bonus this dog proofs the down stairs at our house as well. The "barn door" side is made from 1x6 and the back is 1x3. The stain is called Gunstock which my wife is obsessed with. She is talking about staining every piece of wood in the house with the stain which I will NOT be doing. It took me around 4 days to finish it completely and put it together. I built the frame in about an hour. I let the wood glue set for a day, then stained one side. I gave that stain 24 hours to dry and stained the other side. Then I followed the same process to clear coat it. I clear coated it three times and sanded between each coat. I had bought a latch kit and installed it. I am very happy with how it came out.

Super easy project with huge results!

Took us 2.5 hours to build and about 2 hours of finishing work. Be sure to use a square as you position each panel.

Thanks Ana!

My adult son needed a bigger computer desk for the new computer with double monitors and lots of accessories that he received for Christmas from his Dad. I ripped a sheet of plywood in half length-wise using Ana's tip of clamping a 2x4 to the board to be cut in order to get a long, straight line with a circular saw. The front edge of the plywood desktop is covered with flat trim to make it smooth and give it a finished look. I built two basic bookshelves to hold up the ends of the desk for storage of software and other accessories. Since the desktop is 8 ft long and will be supporting a lot of equipment, I decided it needed a 2x4 framework in the middle to keep it from sagging. My son wanted space between the desktop and the wall for lights and wires, etc., so that's why there is a 6inch gap between the back of the desktop and the wall.
The bookcases and desktop are stained with MinWax "Golden Oak" and sealed with Varathane Premium Polyurethane. I didn't use any wood prep because I was going for a more rustic look. The underside of the desk and the 2x4 framework is painted with Benjamin Moore "Copper Mine" in a Pearl Finish.
I didn't use any particular plan, but put together several ideas that I've learned from following Ana's blog for a few years now. My son is thrilled with his desk and we both are looking forward to furnishing his entire apartment with hand-built furniture from this site.
Thanks, Ana!!!!

We have considered buying a cedar-lined chest to store blankets, towels, etc. for many years.  However, we couldn’t find one that came close to matching the Knotty Pine bedroom set that we had in our master suite. 

Hence, our design criteria was quite simple; match the bedroom set and have a chest sturdy enough to support our Beagles as they peer at the squirrels outside the window.

We used plans / ideas from several different chest designs which were readily available on the internet.  Most of those plans were using hard woods such as oak.  Those plans called for a hard wood framing with ¼” oak plywood for the panels.  Since we needed to use Knotty Pine to match the bedroom set, we used 1” Knotty Pine for framing and Knotty Pine ¾ ply w/ Kreg Screws and copious glue to strengthen the construct.  We finished it off with locally available 3/8” cedar T.G. planks.  It is very heavy and very strong!  This project was done entirely w/ Kreg Screws and no router rabbeting for the panels.

We learned the following while doing this project:

·      When using soft woods, always put the power sander on the wood before you start the sander.  Otherwise, you can get scratching / sander burns that don’t present themselves until staining begins.

·      While very strong, ¾” plywood is very heavy!

·      When using plywood, it is recommended that you stain both the visible and non-visible sides of each piece where glue is not to be applied.  Otherwise the chance for delaminating increases dramatically.

60 hours work and $350 to build.   

Farmhouse Trestle Table 

6' Table

Check my work at https://www.facebook.com/Custom-Patio-Retreats-1764656797122875/

We were so excited to stumble across your plans on Pinterest for this farmhouse table. We literally seen the same table for 1600.00 on Wayfair's website. We can not wait to tackle another one for outdoors. Thank you. 

This was for our mudroom, obviously. I wanted to use up some ply that I had ill-advisedly had the store cut into quarters, so each of my storage compartments are 48" long, supported in the center by that divider piece you see in the second pic.

The beauty of DIY of course, is that you can modify everything. But if you do, you spend a week on a 4-hour project (but you do use up a lot of scraps). I cut nearly every piece out of plywood with the exception of the 1x3 front legs. It was time-consuming, but I think it was worth it as it allowed me to impulsively deepen the storage from 3.5" to 5". It also meant I only had to purchase the cedar, one pine 1x3, and a hinge.

The top is bare cedar boards which we'll allow to weather naturally. The hinge is the longest piano hinge they had at the blue store at about $7. The white is just a base Behr ultra with no tint because it's classic and we already had it.

Here's a dog bed that my boys and I built about a year ago (our very first build). Pretty basic but our pups love it! 

Spent my time home from work building this for the cabin this summer. will be using coushions from ikea that are water and uv resistant as well as double sealed with removable covers for washing. 

I've built many custom pieces for local folks but this one with all it's half circles really threw me - how was I going to do those, make them precise and not spend 3 days doing it. It's simple really.... I cheated!! LOL I used a 3 1/8" hole saw for the larger ones and a 1" hole saw for the smaller ones. I also took two boards and clamped them together with pipe clamps and then drilled two at once! It gives it a more consistent look and cuts the time literally in half!

I used a home brew for the stain. Had a friend of mine do the engraving for the front header piece. I think the whole project took between 10 - 15 hours to do because there was a lot of experimenting with the stain and there was also readjusting the sides and top to look how I wanted.

The client loves it and I'll post a pic on my Facebook page of the whole thing loaded up with wine, later today.

So a few notes... We added a base of 2x4 pressure treated wood footing around the entirety of the greenhouse which should help keep it from rotting? Blocks are an alternative here. Our lumber store didn't carry the right size of tin sheets so we added a 2x10 at the bottom which seems to work and still look okay. We picked up a 30" metal screen door there which should assist in keeping out the critters and allows us to lock out our small kiddos who might wreck the plants :) This is a great plan!!! Thank you so much! Oh - materials ran about $700 including screen door? We went through about 4 1-pound boxes of sheet metal screws and at least a large box of 3" screws?? and 2 small boxes 1.25"?? If you cut you pieces right you may end up with an extra 8' clear sheet of corrugated plastic? We spent about 20 hours building just the greenhouse but we had hauled a lot of stuff to the site by hand... We are new to carpentry and pulled this off so anyone can do this!! Dremel tool works for cutting plastic, but not as good as the tin!! Good luck and cheers!

After searching all over the internet, we came up with this. I love how it turned out and how it change the look of the room.

Memorial Day weekend project for my wife and I. These will go around our firepit out back, but it was raining so we just took pics in the garage where they were assembled. I built the woven back bench and used the plan (and SketchUp) to modify the plan for 2 chairs as well. I mirrored the weave on the bench and the 2 chairs for a bit of visual contrast.

I also used the plan for the folding camp chairs but simplified it a bit by removing the upper strechers and dowels and just making the fabric on there permanently. These will only be pulled out if we have more than 4 around the fire.

This is my take on the Narrow Cottage End Tables. Painted the bottoms and stained the tops.  Added the shelves towards the bottom for added storage and stability.  The bottom shelf is 'let in' around the inner legs.  The shelf boards rounded over to give them a batten look.