Well, as my first project off of ana-white.com, I decided to make my two little guys the Little Helper Tower. I had seen store versions that cost $200 or more, so was excited to be able to have something that we wouldn't normally be able to buy.
It was supposed to be a Christmas present. It was finally painted and ready to go by mid-March. Which is to say, I couldn't find time to work on it too much, though it also took me much longer to do than what Ana said, which is not unusual for me.
The main problems I faced were 1x2s that I bought wet and that warped by the time I got around to using them; not having an honestly flat surface to work on, not having lots of experience with my jigsaw, so my top arches and bottom curves are not that attractive, and using some leftover red paint that took about 3 layers, plus the primer, to cover well.
In the end, I have a working helping tower with a movable floor that both my kids, now 2 and 4, can use in the kitchen (mainly - we didn't make the folding kind because the hinges were way too expensive!, so it doesn't move around too much) and it has helped my little guys help me on endless baking projects. My 2-year-old still can't get out of it himself, but my 4-year-old swings on it like a monkey. Thanks, Ana, for all your inspiration! I have a list a mile long of projects I want to tackle. Hopefully I'll get to one soon!
