Community Brag Posts

My wife and I love this table: http://www.woodlandcreekfurniture.com/graphics/DT00100NEW.pdf so I took the Farmhouse Table plan and modified it just a little bit. I used pocket screws to join the table top and eventually wound up installing 2x4 runners on the underside to sturdy the top even more. I also used my son to help keep the boards flush while I screwed them together. He though it was wonderful to help his dad out this way.

For the table frame I used a 1" straight bit in my router to put a little "flair" on the rail. The leg bracing is 1x1 scrap that I had left over from ripping the rail to size. I used my drill press on the bracing to make the recessed hole for the screws at the correct angle. I then covered the screw hole with a 5/8" red oak dowel.

I decided to go a little more traditional on the breadboard end just to see if I could do it. Its really not that hard just more time consuming. I used a 5/8" red oak dowel that I bought at the hardware store for joining the breadboard to the rest of the table top.

My table is made of a mixture of pine and spruce. I used shellac to seal the wood before staining. Shellac keeps these softwoods from splotching when they are stained. I then used Minwax Red Oak stain. I let the stain sit for about 15 minutes before wiping it off. The color turned out great. I used my Christmas money to buy an LVLP spray gun to hook up to my pancake compressor. I used the Spray-It 3000 to apply polyurethane. I put 5 coats on the frame and 10 coats on the top itself. In between each coat I used 0000 steel wool to buff the surface. The very last coat I left alone so it would shine. It left it with a little bit of an "orange peel" finish but I thought it made the table look more rustic so I left it alone.

All in all it took me about 60 hours over a 6 month period to get the table done. When you have a real job, kids, and a house to take care of it takes a while to do stuff like this.

I've got a plan for some chairs so I think I'm going to try chairs next. They say if you can build chairs you can build anything. I've built just about everything but chairs so maybe this saying will work in reverse. If the chairs go as fast as the table did, it might take another 6 months to get one done.

The wood for this table I got for free. My brother-in-law works in the lumber business and this wood was the throw away that none of the contractors wanted. All of it had been sitting in the sun and was warped, gray, and cracked. A friend from church who does woodworking for a living planed and jointed the boards straight and square for me. The lumber is construction grade pine and spruce. Most of the money I spent on this was for the spray gun, the finish, and the hardware that I used for joining the tabletop to the frame.

A help hint I found out after the fact. If you're sanding pine and spruce with a random orbit sander or any electric sander you are going to leave little "swirlies" throughout the wood. Either sand the wood by hand to prevent the "swirlies" or learn how to use a card scraper so you don't have to mess with sandpaper. The "swirlies" showed up when I applied the stain. Before then I couldn't see them. My wife thought the "swirlies" added to the rustic-ness of the table, so I left them alone.

Made from entryway console plans and got the concrete top idea from DIY Pete's web and found a cool way to faux finish top with concrete stain I bought at sherwin Williams. Used a buff color dye added to top when mixing concrete 

Our version of the outdoor sectional.  We couldn't find 24" wide pillows so we modified the design to accommodate 22"x24" ones.  We also added a 1x8 held on with pocket screws to provide some additional support on the back and help keep the pillows from falling through.

This project only took a day to build and not the whole day. The painting took a bit I had to do first coat at night then the second one in the morning and flipped and did other side twice...

I've made mostly from 2x3 and 2x4. I made the drawer using scrap plywood I have laying around. The project is not finsihed. I will probably use watco danish oil through all wood.

I am very happy with how the finish in this turned out... the green gold paint and the American Cherry wood compliment each other well!  Doing this again on more proj

Saw the plans on this site and decided to make a jewelry cabinet for my wife for mother's day and she loved it.

I made these from select Pine, they were super easy to do, look great and I love that I can change the pictures up easily.

Decided to build these as I could find anything tall enough to be bedside tables. Easy to follow plans that came together quickly. 

This is my first project, and it turned out really well! I bought the wood at Home Depot. It is pine (except for the crowning 2x4, that's douglas fir because Home Depo didn't have that size in pine) and I probably spent about $150 just on the wood, and then I also bought a palm sander, corded drill, circular saw, and Kreg Jig. I also bought pre-stain, stain, and polycrylic finish which added another $45. Plus I spent money on sand paper, clamps, Kreg Jig screws, and some nails.

I included the picture of the back to show how I used the Kreg Jig. I used it to not only attach the middle part to the sides, but I made the middle part one connected piece so it would be extra sturdy, tight, and pieces would not bow when leaned against. The back isn't pretty, but it's against the wall so no one can see. The Kreg Jig is awesome and I'm glad I bought it so I can do other projects.

I also included a photo of the bottom of the side. I used a scrap piece of wood to make it more sturdy since that's where I drilled the holes to bolt it to the bed's metal frame.

Between sanding, assembly, and finishing I worked on this over the course of about two months on the weekends. If you don't sand much and keep the finish more simple you could potentially get it done really fast. But since this is something we plan on using in our master bedroom for years to come I wanted to try to make it perfect. It still has a handful of mistakes (I learned a lot), but my joke is "it's a reclaimed wood headboard."

Now that I've got the tools I'm on to building matching side tables, and pending that goes well the plan is to build a dresser.

I built the Simple Bed for one of our kids and now we wanted a bunk bed.  I saw many plans for bunk beds based on the Simple Bed plans, but I didn't want the ladder on the side.  I made some changes and designed the bed in 3D using Autodesk Inventor.  It didn't turn out much different than I planned.  It's super heavy, but very stable.  My wife did a great job on the stain.

I modified the plan a little to make a rectangular 4 foot long planter and added a top.