Community Brag Posts

I love how this bookshelf turned out! I made the bottom part 6" taller so I can fit my shredder in there. I'm using this in my office/guest room so I can have office type stuff, but have it all contained in one place, so it doesn't take over the whole room. Ana's instructions were great! There are slight issues but they are so minor it still turned out great! Overall I am very happy with how this turned out. :)

I followed this easy plan. Only thing I changed is rounding the arm rest as a safety feature. Added weed barrier on the bottom

very easy to put together!! Thanks Ana

Took a little longer than I anticipated.  By far the hardest part was finding straight boards at Home Depot.  Used Cedar 4x4s for the post to avoid treated wood.  Had to make a few adjustments for our king mattress, but well worth it.   Bed and platform came in right at $300 for the wood, screws, paint, etc.  Thanks for the plans!

This is a very easy way to create a sand or water table for your kids and it only takes a few hours from start to finish. A few pieces of wood, some screws and tub to hold the sand or water and your set. Enjoy!

My daughter wanted a bed with lots of storage so searched on here and found the queen and king storage beds, but she wanted something taller.  So, I modifed the plans for the bed and made it slightly larger than a queen storage bed, but not quite as big as the king, and almost twice the height.  I then built a set of stairs (modified the plans for the stairs as well so she would have 2 sets that created a bridge for her dog's kennel to go under her bed hidden away slightly.  This was by far my biggest and most challenging project to date, but we were thrilled with the way it turned out.  She loves the bed and I loved the time I was able to spend with her while building (she is 20 so time like that is far and few between)

I designed this bed that we built with inspiration from Ana's camp loft bed plans, but without stairs and second bed underneath.

We couldn't find untreated 4x4's for the legs so my husband glued two 2X4's together. In the end you can hardly tell that they aren't one piece.

Using the easy to follow instructions by Ana, I was able to create this wonderful addition to my front porch.

Taken from inspiration from the original Clubhouse Bed and from the "Treehouse Bed" in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog, my daughter's "Surf Shack" bed was created. Total cost for supplies (mainly lumber) ~$300. Pottery Barn's version: $1,500. Yikes!

Wicker turtles from Pottery Barn Kids (size: SMALL). Fishing Net from Oriental Trading Co.

I followed your plans pretty closely. My daughters love it (2 and 3 years old)! We hope to get lots of years of use out of it, it is so solidly built!

Since wood is the traditional 5th wedding anniversary gift, I thought this table would be perfect.

From the pallet style coat rack plans we saw from Ana and what she did for Ryobi Nation.  Real simple to follow.  I just change measurements to fit my space and other modificaitons because I didn't have quite enough 2x lumber.  I saw the railroad spike hook idea on Pinterest and had a metal worker down my road cut them and thread them for me.  I am very happy with it.  I found a water-based stain (I HATE the clean up for oil based stuff) in a color called Aged Leather.

This was built using Ana's media console plan with slight modifications. I decided to forego the drawers for simples shelves, like so many on the brag posts did. I also added shelves in each of the cabinets for extra storage. And, I added some scrap 2x2s for vertical trim on the cabinets. I opted for knobs instead of handles, because I thought it looked better and they were recycled from another project of mine.

I painted black, since that's my thing and it's seemingly safe, but distressed with my sander and used a q-tip to stain the "weathered" parts. For whatever reason, I let my husband select the stain and he chose the Minwax Classic Gray. This is a gorgeous stain, but do not use it on black as a distress stain. This color takes a bit of manipulation, as it doesn't take on certain pieces of wood as it does others (Ana does a tutorial on this color--watch it and you'll see what I mean). From there, if you get any excess on the black paint, it looks a sloppy mess--I had to wipe it down with a wet cloth as best I could, repaint it, sand it, and restain with Rustoleum Summer Oak (I personally prefer all Rustoleum products to Minwax, but that's my preference).

Also, I wish I had used higher-quality wood and/or spent more time finding better cut pieces. I used pine, and some of the pieces (especially the 2x2s) were very wonky.

This was my first "big" project and it took a really long time because I made a ton of mistakes. But, it's wood, and mistakes can be corrected. Just like life, mistakes are learning experiences--some more costly than others. While this isn't the most beautiful piece of furniture, it was a great learning experience, and that's why this console is so valuable to me.