Community Brag Posts

Just finished up my Murphy Bed project. Hope you like.

For the most part I followed the plans for the legs and base structure as suggested. In our area the 2x4s are sold with rounded corners. To avoid a very obvious seam on the legs, I used 2x6s which I screwed and glued together then cut back to 3x4 (1.5x2) x 4 to make the legs and cross beams a little beefier with little or no seem on the legs. As I decided to build the top from reclaimed wood I framed in the top with 2x4 ripped down to approx.. 2x3 with a sheet of plywood to support top boards. As I don’t have a planner to level any reclaimed top boards I could find, I decided to make my own faux reclaimed boards out of ¾’ x 9’ – 8’ planks. I distress the wood using a chain, rocks my table saw, hammer, nails, blowtorch and bow saw. In hindsight, I wish I had distressed a little more vigorously but everyday use will augment it over time. I continued to paint, distress and sand on the fly, using paints I had left from previous projects. In some cases, I mixed paints to get additional colour varierty. All boards were stained at the to colour bare areas which as a bonus added a slight yellow hue making the paint look older. I did some scraping and blowtorching of semi-dry paint and stain to get a variety of looks and textures. I dry fit the boards and reorganized the puzzle pieces to get a random but organized look – controlled chaos. Once I was close I glued and screwed the board down clamping as I went to keep the boards tight. This paid-off later as the tighter seams allow less food to fall in-between. I cut down the last row from over sized pieces to get a tight fit in the last row. I finished with 11 coats of poly to toughen up the pine and again to seal the seams from food. My wife suggested painting the legs off-white as our cottage already is max-ed out on natural wood. We will follow by painting the existing chairs the same off-white and adding a little distress for age. Cost was approx. $175 to 200. The plywood alone was $45, paint I had. Time was easily 50 hours as the artistic on the top, time although fun, was time consuming.

Anna’s website is great I have had many compliments on my table. I have pointed many people to the site for direction on their own projects. Thanks for the great plans.

Sandy

This was a fun project... i really enjoyed it! It was my first time staining, so I learned some things, and it got a lot of compliments from customers!

I wanted a large chest to store toys, books or blankets. I wanted it to be cheap to build and be rustic. This project turned out perfectly! I used 2" and 4"-wide furring strips and rope for the hinges and handles. I used 1/4" plywood for the bottom and made a groove with the router for it to slide into while assembling. I helped 16 girls make these who had no previous experience and they loved it!

This was my first project and I loved it!!  Can't wait to do more!!

This was my first project with doors! Everything worked perfectly, except there seems to be a small mistake on the cut list - the 4 1x3's for the doors should be 14", not 11" each. The picture is correct but the cut list should be revised. Otherwise, instructions were easy to follow. I used a metal grill pattern for the door insets - purchased from Lowes, cut with tin snips and spray painted matte black. This cabinet is a great storage space and an all-around great project. One extra small tip - it may be better to set the top piece back a 1/4 inch more so that it goes over the top edge of the plywood backing on the rear - it would make for a cleaner finish. Thanks Ana - this is my 4th project from your website and I hope to furnish an entire (tiny) house all by hand!

I was looking for a wooden parking garage plan for my little guy, but couldn't find one! I looked a bunch of the dollhouse plans for inspiration and found a wooden toy garage online that I based my plans on. I still need to add the ramps and a few more parking spots, but my son loves it! It has an elevator (need to refine it) and helicopter landing zone!

Pergola is 10x12 made of all cedar except posts.  Posts were 6x6 brown wood then covered in 1x6 cedar. Slats on top were attached using L brackets. Stained the same year.

As a complete beginner in wood working (unless you count a year of woodshop over a decade ago), I decided that building a cart for the miter saw I just bought would be a great first project. So what did I do with that brand new miter saw? I left it in the box and made all of the cuts with a circular saw. Not sure what I was thinking there...

I mostly followed the excellent plan provided here but used wooden arms to prop up the wings in order to save on cost. I got the idea from the folding sling chair plan. It took quite a few screw ups and adjustments of the lower support bar before getting one of the wings level but I got it eventually.

Update 8/20/13: The miter saw has been a joy to use with the cart and the big flip up wings provide a ton of really convenient work space in addition to stabilizing 8 ft boards for cutting. I added a sliding drawer and some utility hooks for additional storage.

I made a wooden game board for The Duke from Catalyst Game Labs. The Duke is a 2 player abstract strategy game. In some ways, it is similar to chess. For more details about The Duke visit the official website for the game where you can find the rules and files for a Print & Play version of the game. (Unfortunately, at the time of writing this tutorial the physical copy of The Duke is out of print.)

The game board for The Duke is similar to a chess board. It uses a 6×6 grid instead of the 8×8 grid in chess.

7ft Fancy X farmhouse table

This was my first project! We just bought a house and have no furniture except a mattress on the floor! But soon, we will have a home full of custom built furniture :)

I modified this plan quite a bit so it would fit in my space better. My husband really wanted a square table, so I came up with this one based on the farmhouse table. I changed the table top pieces to 2x10’s simply because I like how they look. It took me quite a while because I wanted the top to be super smooth with minimal gaps between the boards, so I ran the boards through a planer quite a few times until they were perfectly flat. Also, since it is square and smaller, we didn’t need the support beam along the middle.

I really wanted chairs that matched the table, so I ordered chairs that were unfinished and stained them to match the table. This took FOREVER and they were a little expensive, but they turned out great! We also got 2 barstools that match.

Like any other project, the finishing took the longest. I sanded for what felt like 20 years, then stained and poly’d for another 10. I am pretty happy with it considering it was my first try!

Thank you Anna for providing the template plans for this project. My wife had a mirror leaning on the wall in our bedroom that rarely got used and jewelry all over the dresser. So thanks to you I was able to turn this cheap mirror into useful storage and organize her jewelry.  Thanks! 

I made this for my boy who's turning four tomorrow! (Sep 1st) He loves building forts and I don't mind rearranging the furniture, but set up and clean up is so time consuming, we'd both rather spend more time playing. This is an indoor tent, but I took it outside for pictures. Aside from the obvious difference of adding doors and a back, the changes I made from the original plans are: using an 8 foot 1x3 so the tent is 4 feet deep instead of 3. Instead of stapling the fabric on the 1x3s at the bottom, I wrapped the fabric around and used velcro so I could remove it for washing. I sewed a tube of fabric and attached it at the top to make removal easier. Time Investment is so long because of the sewing involved for the tent. If you have an Ikea near you, they've got this stuff called glaze paint (more of a stain, I think) in all different colors - it doesn't need a top coat (unless you want it shiny), it's solvent free and, are you ready? $6 for 12.something ounces, MORE than enough for this project. To make it even easier if you're using fabric instead of curtains like me and you've got the room, cut a 8ft 1x3 in half so you've got two 4ft pieces. Most quilting cotton at fabric stores is 44-45 inches wide selvedge to selvedge (the ends that don't fray) and if you follow the plan according to where to drill for the top bolt, you'll need 4-4.25 yards of fabric, depending on whether you are going to use velcro or staple. I would use 4.25 if using velcro, the fabric can go right over the top bar and over the other side if you don't want to sew a tube like I did. If you don't want to sew at all, use iron-on hem tape on the cut edges and iron on velcro. Make sure of placement of the velcro before ironing on. More pictures on my blog =)