Community Brag Posts

I built this in a full size.  Took some time to adjust all the measurements.  I used cheap lumber since I was painting it and it cost a little over $350.  Then I spent another $75 because I screwed up measurements.  :). This was only the 3rd thing I ever built, so I think I did alright.  The plans were great!  Watched several videos on YouTube about squaring drawers and that helped.

I made this as part of a room makeover for my teenager. It was my second furniture project, the first being Ana’s original farmhouse bed. This was my first project with the Kreg jig and I watched a great YouTube video by shanty2chic to learn the basics of pocket holes. This was also my first staining project and I love the results. My daughter loved it so much she had me stain her closet doors to match! The lumber for the bed was only $120, I spent an additional $80 on wood and screws for the slats to support the mattress, my new kreg jig came with enough screws to make the bed frame. I spent another $80 on wood conditioner, stain and poly since she didn’t like the first stain (Briarsmoke, which I will definitely use on another project).

To finish off my bathroom remodel I built the Martina wall shelf. I reused the metal hook that was previously on my wall before the board and batten treatment. It fit perfectly in the space under the shelf meant for hooks. I wish I had measured out my towels and storage needs. I could have actually stored more if I had adjusted the plans to make the shelf a little deeper and a couple inches wider. Overall, I'm very pleased! The Kreg Jig is a fun little tool, too!

Fabulous Divider Closet by DIY_with_Emily

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!

My husband is deployed and I just decided to start building, to keep my mind busy. I built this table & benches, sanded, stained it & had it in my nook in just 6 days!!! I worked on it every night when the kids went to bed. Thank you Ana White!! :) I will be using this site quite a bit to keep me busy!

I needed more storage for our TINY kitchen. I found the nursery armoire plans and asked my dad to help me build it for a pantry! We modified it some by making it taller and adding more shelves inside (sorry no pics of that). For the doors I wanted to do something fun so we cut lots (over 700!) of small pieces of wood and inlaid then in a herringbone pattern - IN LOVE! For the handles we used copper pipe and I am IN LOVE with those too! Enjoy!

~ Maggie

I combined my favorite elements from three of Ana's dollhouse plans to make this dollhouse for my kids. My favorite part is the stairs, which I cut from a 2x4 with a miter saw. I made this project from start to finish in one day while the grandparents took the kids, and it was ready for Christmas morning! I made simple furniture for it, too, which you can see in the second picture.

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.

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.