Community Brag Posts

I finally decided I was going to make the fort bed for my daughter and was about to print off the materials list to take to the lumber yard and the junior height camp loft was front and center on the webpage. Though significantly more bed, it looked perfect my little girl. We really wanted her bed high enough to avoid the only heating vent in the room and didn't want to lose the floor space for play, this seemed to be an ideal fit. When I finally put the bed together I realized that keeping the staircase as in the original plans resulted in a bowling alley sort of space left over. It was awkward and really shrunk the room as the 'alley' wasn't usable for much of anything. I played around a little bit and my husband and I decided that we would put it on the side. It fit perfectly to the wall and was much more space efficient for the room. I am a little nervous about the new openness of the deck portion, but both kids have found it a fun place to read and pretend fish. It was my first project of this size and I did everything until the final assembly by myself and I am so glad to have done it. It took more time than I imagined, but again I am a true novice.

I really wanted it stained so that it would camouflage the wear a little better, but I had a great deal of trouble finding a low VOC stain in my town. I used the lowest I could find and a low VOC water based poly. It matches her dressers and trim nearly perfectly. Her older brother likes the bed so much that nearly everyday he tries to convince her that she wants to switch beds with him.

So I finally broke down and decided to make the table that my wife had been asking for sometime. This after our last table was damaged by mold in our last move. I have completed a few woodworking projects before this so from a skill level on this project it was not too hard. The problem was that I wanted the table to be perfect but my wife wanted the dings and dents that came along with a farm table, so we compromised somewhat.

I did run into one significant issue that will be a life long lesson. The Douglas Fir wood that I bought had a very high moisture content and during the course of the project most of the wood began to shrink up to a half an inch in some parts as the wood dried out. I was talking to a construction friend in the area when I was finishing up the table and he confirmed that he had the same issue with this wood locally. Would have been nice to know this from the beginning.

Anyways, we followed the Triple Pedestal Table and Bench with the following adjustments. We used all 2x6 boards for the table top in order to provide additional thickness for durability, we also removed the center divider and just opted to use the full length of the 8 foot boards. We then framed the table with 2x6 and then added another lip of 2x6 below the table top. The purpose of this was to create a large enough area to notch the boards for a resting areas of the leg tops. We also rounded all of the 2x6 edges on the top with a router as we didn't want to have any sharp corners for the kids to run into.

On the legs, we opted to use 4x6 posts for the leg bases and tops, as well as the leg post. We (meaning me) wanted to have a nice clean look rather than the layers of 2x6 and 2x4's in the original design. I used the router to create the hole in the post for the runner beam, and used a 2x8 beam rather than the 2x6 beam. Finally I did not have the patience to cut out all of the arches for both the table and the bench and my jig-saw was not working properly, so we just decided to improvise with the design as shown in the pictures.

First ever project. Just testing my skills and all materials were low grade.  Next project will be better grade wood 

My daughter wanted a dressing table and we had just dismantled a small wooden shed so I made her one by recycling the wood. I’ve only been woodworking for about 2 years and I’m really proud of it. Hope you all like it.
Steve Ross

Mostly the same. Made smaller spacing for the seat (used 1x4 for spacing) and gave it a back (18" 15% miter) hand formed the front seat board and a bit of an overhang also hand formed the tops of the seat backs and armrest idea was it would be comfy with or without cushions. Ow and it's all construction grade lumber that I water sealed. Thanks for the idea!

Made from Pine and great for Wine! A couple lengths of pine, some bead board, and coastal accent paint and ...Boooom! Show it off to all your friends and family.

My first ever furniture making attempt . My 5 year old daughter Delilah really wanted a princess canopy bed and we found the perfect one on this site , thank

Thank for the plans!

I modified this plan by removing 1/3 of the table so it would fit our dining room. I used the farmhouse bench plans and "upholstered" them. This is the result. I used construction grade pine. Some of the table was altered by mistake, other bits on purpose. This project took me 40+ hours to complete. Weekends, a afterwork. 

Hello everyone,
I collected unwanted wood and I put them in a good use. Transform them into planters . Many people throw excellent wood . Either, they aren’t aware or they purchased new furniture.
Thank you Mrs. Anna . She has inspired me with her excellent ideas. God bless you
Jean Abinajem

Needed a dresser/changing station for our baby boys nursery. After pricing the "cheap ones" at target ($225). Decided I could build one for much less and much better quality. Found the Fillman Dresser/Changing station plan on Ana's site and felt that was the plan.

One modification I did to make the drawer bottoms stronger was to route a ¼" rabbit ⅜" from the bottom of the drawer to help hold the ¼" plywood.

This was my first time using milk paint and after the first coat I felt I ruined the project because the color was so uneven. Thank goodness for the internet because when I looked milk paint up every site had a "don't panic" paragraph about the first coat going on uneven. Quick sanding and a second coat Made me a believer.

As this was my first project I am very pleased with how it turned out. I learned a number of things to avoid and look forward to my next project.

Thanks Ana for all of the inspiration and ideas.

I love how my fireplace turned out!! It took a whole day to make and I did end up scaling the design up to make it a lot bigger. Love how it turned out!! 

The hubs and I built this for our two year old daughter. It was pretty straightforward, and wasn't a huge time commitment. We had taken her out of her crib a few months back, but she had been sleeping in a twin mattress on the floor, so she could get used to not being in a crib. She was so excited for her new bed.

Note: we used rockler brackets to attach the rails to the headboard and footboard, so its not just one huge piece, and when we move we can take it apart. They worked Great!!

Also, because she is two, and we wanted to keep her lower to the floor, we decided not to use a box spring for now, so we took 9 inches off the bottom of thr headboard 4x4s. this ensured there was not a gap between the top of the mattress and bottom of the headboard. If we choose to use a box spring mattress later, it will still work out fine and look great.