Community Brag Posts

We have 3 (almost) teenage boys and needed the storage of the Brookstone bed for their sport gear, etc. I built 2 of them and my 15 year old built his. I can't get over how easy they were to build! This was the first building project I ever made and they turned out beautifully! The headboard took about 2 hours to build and the bed about 5 hours. I was pretty slow though, checking and double checking measurements, glueing and clamping like crazy, being careful not to rush. Still, 7 hours to make the bed and a couple hours to paint, not a bad days work! The lumber cost $144/each so we were happy with the cost of the beds. I would highly recommend furniture movers underneath them. I used 4 huge ones under the ends of the 2x2 supports and small squares under the legs/headboard. They move so easily with them! Thanks, Ana, for a great plan!! We are so thankful and love our new beds!!

In my new house we have a small room that can fit a full but also have a tall family, so when I found out that there is a Full XL, I went on the hunt for bed frames and not many choices, so I turned to Ana's site and found/used the essential bed frame for all sizes plan and adjusted it for a FullXL. Our house theme is black and white so we painted it with Ink Black by Behr. Whole frame built for $50 as I already had the paint. My wife loves the frame.

I had been on a search for a while for new furniture for my son’s new big boy bed room but couldn’t justify the money for new furniture and couldn’t find anything remotely nice on craigslist. I ran across this plan on Ana’s site and just had to have it so it became my first large furniture project.
It was fun to build and very rewarding when my son told me he loved his new bed!

I did have some issues with using the kreg jig on the platform so I did use wood screws on the outside frame. I had better success with the kreg jig on the headboard, guess I just needed practice.

There were a few things I did to make it easier to move the bed if needed:
I did not attach the slats but I did lay them on a non skid grip (like you put under rugs on wood floors).
I attached the headboard to the platform using carriage bolts so it could be taken apart easily.

The plans were really easy to follow.

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!

We decided to follow the Club House bed plans, but we added another bunk below. We did this by adding a foot to the height and duplicating the slats and ends etc. My boys absolutely love this bed! We actually enjoyed building it. I can't wait to try more Ana White plans - they were so easy to follow and it's so satisfying having made something cool from scratch.

Chicken Coop Built by Dan

My wife wanted matching bookcases for our library rather than the hodgepodge collection we had assembled over the years. We looked at several different options but the trick was getting them to our house in a cost and time effective manner. We came across the Willy Bookcase plans here and, after pricing the wood vs. pre-built options, decided to strike out to build our own bookcases.

The library took 5 McMansions, 1 Highrise, and 1 3-Bed/2Bath bookcase. We liked Ikea's Billy corner bookcase set, so we purchased a corner bookcase bracket from them to create the effect and stabilize the Highrise between two McMansions.

We decided to do the entire length of the bookcase sides with shelf holes to allow for maximum flexibility in spacing of the shelves. We fixed the middle shelves across all units to match the top of the short 3-Bed/2Bath.

The simple design made the project simple overall - a single bookcase is an easy weekend project. Since we decided to use stain with wipe on poly, finishing took the vast majority of the time (four hours to cut, sand, and build, 44 hours to finish...) Purchasing a good shelf pin jig and making consistent measurements is a necessity for mass producing shelves with consistent spacing on the shelves.

This build was done with all pocket holes. I used some pre-made project boards for the top and joined them with pocket holes and glue. Also I used all pine for this project. The chairs are just old chairs from my previous table. Stained with special walnut and finished with semi-gloss poly and finishing wax. I rubbed and buffed the finish to get the nice shine. This project took a while because I decided to let the poly cure for about a week before finishing and placing in my dining area.

This weekend I finished building the Alexia Bench. :D This is my entry for this month's Fab Furniture Flippin' Contest sponsored by D. Lawless Hardware :)

Lake house water front DIY bar. Made of treated lumber and pallet wood planks that I cut from collected pallets.

This is the 3 box storage daybed, as you can see I added an armrest on one end as it sits in a corner.

Tips for building this project: Buy a decent circular saw, I used a cheap one and really regretted it. Square your timber, I ended up squaring my timber using a sander, which wasn't as easy as it sounds. Check you measurements, the bottom of one of my boxes was a little short because I didn't double check the measurements and I ended up having to fix it with an extra piece of timber. 2 or 3 saw horses are a real help and lots of clamps.

I used the cutout outline from the link below but had to convert it all to metric since I live in Sweden, also a standard single mattress here isn't as wide but longer then the one used in the linked project. I didn't take this into account and ended up having to buy an extra piece of plywood.
http://ana-white.com/2009/12/plan-stratton-daybed-as-request-by-you.html

I got the single mattress and the pillows from IKEA.

This was a lot of fun and I look forward to spending many hours relaxing on my new daybed.

This was my first project. It is for our nursery. Painted white to match the crib and dresser. So much fun. Plan was great and very easy to follow. Thanks to the other brag post which mentioned there was a missing cut for the box (bottom shelf). 28 3/4. I used countersink screws with a 1/2" countersink drill bit. I also used shelf pins to secure the shelf. With the paint I noticed the shelfs were very snug. I would probably take off 1/4" off the shelf size if I built it again. Can't wait for the next project! Thanks.

Built this entry table as a gift for my aunt. She has a beautiful Spanish style home, and I wanted to create a piece that looked as though it would have come from one of our California Spanish missions. I used the Honey Bear Lane staining technique. I used HD pine lumber and accented with metal straps from HD and clavos. This was a challenging but very fun project!

This is a solid maple desk with two drawers finished with shellac and paste wax. I altered the plan by giving the desk and overhang, as well as changing the way the legs were built.

I’ve been in need of a bed side table in my room for quite some time now. I need storage for things like my keys, wallet, the remote, as well as other little items that seem to get kicked around and lost. I figured it would also be nice to have a place to keep my alarm clock, I’m guessing it will be a lot more convenient to hit the snooze button in the morning if the clock is closer to me.