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HS woodshop projects , Atlas Prep Colorado Springs CO.

I built this for my daughter after building a ladder shelf for my kids bathroom. It took more time to install and adjust the drawer slides and paint the project.  

This was my first real woodworking project and I feel like I learned a lot that I could pass on to others taking on this project. First post here!

It was a lot more time consuming than I thought. It is hard to estimate how many hours I put into it, but I'd say at least 20-30 hours of actual work is required. As a first-timer there was probably a lot of wasted time, and trying to squeeze in time for this around work, family, and other priorities probably added time. Other than a couple of days where I put in a solid 4-6 hours of work, the other days were an hour here or there that I could squeeze in. I decided to sand, prime, and paint everything before assembly. I think this was best for me, but I can see why others have recommended painting the entire bed white and then cutting in the color. After assembly there was definitely some touch-up required.

It also cost me a lot more than what others had posted. I spent around $900 for the project, including everything that was required...wood, new saw blades, new jigsaw blades, sandpaper - lots of it, screws - about 600 total, kreg jig, primer, paint, hinges, hinge supports, extra wood for a few mistakes along the way. I'm in Southern California and bought everything at a major home improvement store, so I probably didn't get the best prices on everything, but it is convenient to our house.

I started with taking the plans for the playhouse loft bed and playhouse loft bed with storage stairs - thank you so much for these! I built everything in CAD and converted it to a full size bed. This was very helpful for me as an engineer to see how everything was going to fit together. Even then I made some mistakes along the way! One of the best things this gave me was a consolidated cut list that showed me how many common size/lengths there were...like the 66 1x2x11.5's needed for the rails and the 13 1x3x68.5's (I attached this pdf here http://ana-white.com/sites/default/files/bill%20of%20materials3.pdf). This way I could set up a block on my saw and just knock out the cuts all at once and have them all be the same length. Building it in CAD also saved me on a few things, such as using a 1x4x120 instead of the 1x3x120 called for in the plans, which was not available at the store. This affected the dimensions of the stair walls and a couple of other things.

Things I learned along the way:

- pocket holes are cool and very useful; the kreg jig was well worth the $100

- wood isn't straight or square (I know, obvious for you pros out there!): the bends and curves over an 8 foot length of pine can be quite dramatic

- my garage floor isn't flat: assembly of the first rail taught me this!

- the rails are by far the most time consuming part of this project, between drilling pocket holes, assembly, filling pocket holes, sanding, priming and painting all the nooks and crannies, I probably spent 90% of my time on the rails...but my 5 year old really enjoyed drilling many of the holes and filling them with the kreg hole plugs and glue

- 4ft x 8ft MDF is incredibly heavy so you will need help to transport and it actually measures 49" x 97", so I didn't realize that I needed to cut 1" off of the height for it to match the 48" I had planned for...that would have been much easier to have the store cut for me! No table saw in my tool set...

- even with the help of CAD, I got confused during assembly on some of the directions, such as which wall would be facing outside or inside. This really only affected how I was trying to hide assembly features and screws, but something to look out for when you assemble. I replaced a couple of trim pieces that weren't as perfect as I wanted

- I used a lot more pocket holes during assembly than I expected, which was another reason that I say the kreg jig was well worth it

Differences in my plan:

- the stair widths are adjusted down to 22 3/8 from 22 1/2...you don't want the stairs grinding against them walls when you open and close them. You should check your actual width of your stair area before assembly because things might be different for you and squareness also affects this.

- I have four total stairs to account for the full size bed width, so heights and depths of each have been adjusted

- the lowest stair needs to be slightly shorter to account for the arc when raising/lowering it. As dimensioned, it will interfere with the front legs, so I used 10 1/4 depth instead of 10 1/2.

- I felt like the bed needed more support underneath so I added two more 2x2's with pocket holes on both ends

- I added hinge supports to the storage stairs to prevent squished fingers

Still thinking about added a window or door or some kind of access to the tallest stair compartment from inside the playhouse area...it is really tall so anything going to the floor in there might be hard to get out. The outer stair wall still seems kind of loose so I'm not sure if I need to add more pocket holes where it attaches to the back leg/wall or what. Not sure if I can add CAD models here, but I can supply them if anyone is interested.

This is a mashup of several plans, combined into one big, bad ass, office desk. I've had a little experience years ago in high school woodworking classes, but haven't really built much since. This reminded me how much I enjoy working with wood. So rewarding to be typing this message at my new office desk!

Expecting our second child, my wife and I decided to do away with our guest bedroom and combine it with our office. The only problem was our queen bed took up way too much space and it didn't get enough use to justify the sacrifice. We looked at the wall bed options available for purchase and decided they were way too blah and very expensive. I then found the "A MURPHY BED YOU CAN BUILD, AND AFFORD TO BUILD" post on Ana's website (thanks for the inspiration)! 

 Using cheap pine boards, plywood, door hinges, vinyl upholstery and stain I constructed the wall bed you see here. It really wasn't that difficult but facing it took the most time. To give the boards a more rustic look I used a utility knife to shave off the edges/corners and stained them with the Minwax American Walnut water based stain and the Minwax White Wash Pickling. When this started we thought we were going to have to settle for something unattractive and less than desirable. Seeing it in our office now, we love our new bed and actually think it makes the room look much better!  I didn't keep track of costs, but it couldn't have been more than $150.

DIY Rustic Bookshelf

My mom was looking for a new outdoor table, and asked me to come up with something. I found the link for these plans (http://www.thedesignconfidential.com/2011/04/free-diy-furniture-plans-t…) to knock off Restoration Hardware's $4000 Provence Beam outdoor table. Overall I liked the plan, with the chunkier look of the 4x4's. But there were a lot of errors in the diagrams, and the finished height is 34" which is ridiculously tall for a table. So we took it apart and cut the legs back down to change the finished height to 30". We chose rough-cut cedar for it's look and outdoor properties, not wanting to use treated lumber for a dining table. We couldn't find 2x10's like the plan, so we substituted seven 2x6's just like Ana's plan, but left a 1/2" gap in between so water can drain and not pool on top and rot the wood. Also, since we were working with 4x4's for the legs, we chose heavy duty lag bolts instead of screws to join them together. I love the finished look they give. Overall it's a sturdy, yet lightweight table that my mom loves and has already used for entertaining!

Our old firebox had rusted out through improper installation. So, we took it out and built a 7” bump out directly in front of it. The best part was, the new electric fireplace fit the old firebox location perfectly. Since my wife wanted a stone appearance, we purchased two ¼” 4’x8’ decorative panels that she then “schmeared.” For the mantle, we used pin oak milled from our property. I used three boards to create a faux beam to provide the look we are very happy with. The hearth consists of four walkway pavers.