Community Brag Posts

I made these for my two nieces and soon to be born daughter for Xmas. I used 1" hobby foam for the mattress.

I used Ana's sawhorse plans and painted the sawhorses black. I made up a plan for the desk top inspired by some of the farmhouse table plans. The top looks very thick and chunky, but is mostly made from cheap 1x6 boards put together with glue and pocket holes. The ends of the top are made from 2x2 boards attached with pocket holes. The sides are from 1x2 boards - all attached with glue and pocket holes.

For the finish I used a water based stain from General Finishes - Black Cherry. I started with one coat of poly-acrylic and did not like the look. I sanded it back and bit (distressing the edges a bit) and put on two coats of wax.

Hand painted baby changing station with interchangeable shelves or hampers. Can grow with child into dresser or entertainment center.

I built this for my little girl for Christmas. I think it is one of the cutest $20 presents I have ever gotten her.
Thanks to my sister in law who made the bedding. I also placed felt squares on each corner to make sliding the drawer out of the wood floor a breeze.

I started with the doll farmhouse bed. Someone made a super cute version as a dog bed- and I loved it as a mini sofa...

This is the very first project of mine !! 

We couldn't be happier with our outdoor lounge, and the plans for the 2x4 sofa and chair couldn't have been easier. Most of all, I'm so proud to have been able to make this myself! Thank you Ana!

Farmhouse style doll beds modified width one less slat.

When I first saw this project I thought it might make a great looking table for our dining room - however after seemingly endless frustration with the 2x10s (and also 2x4s I tried after giving up on the 2x10s) badly warping I eventually gave up and bought a couple of pre-glued pine board panels to use as the table top. I had my heart set on a nice flat dining table and the construction boards just weren't working for that. The base was still made from basic pine 2x4s as per the original plan however.
I shortened the table by about 2 feet so it would actually fit in our dining room, removed the inner angled boards because getting the angles right after shortening the table was being a pain, and added a couple of support boards that run lengthwise under the table top since it's thinner than originally planned.
This project seriously took me about 2 years to make, between all of the re-starts and so on.
Tools used include circular saw, belt sander, orbital sander, router, power drill with pocket hole jig.
Not counting wasted materials, this project probably cost me about $120 between the lumber, the hardware,the stain, the finish, etc.
After all that work and hair-pulling though, in the end my wife says she loves it, so I guess that's all that matters :)

250$  I didn't use pocket screws because I wanted the wood to be able to expand and contract as it should. I used biscuits. All Home Depot pine. Distressed. Belt sanded. Orbital sanded. Upgraded "feet" trim out of 1x3. Made the brackets to secure the top to the bottom with a table saw. Grooves cut with biscuit joiner. This was a gift and I wanted it to be perfect. Total of about 32 hours. Could've done the original plans in 15-20. 

Needed something to help my daughter keep track of all her jewelry and especially earrings. This plan seemed to fit.

I decided to use small wooden dowels on one section and angled one for rings. For the doors I used metal window screening and stapled it on.

We live in Los Cabos, Mexico, and the sun is hot and bright! My kids love playing outside in our backyard, but we had no shade. I started looking around, found this site, and though I have few tools and only helping experience with carpentry, decided to give it a go. It's a big hit with the kids and they assure me that it's a nice shady place in the yard! No sand added as we have plenty of dirt and cactus as it is. Tools used: a hand saw (!) and a drill. I really enjoyed it, so I need to go buy a circular saw soon.

So, this project started out years ago with my oldest daughter. She was in daycare and frequently came home with her latest drawing or art. I wanted to make something from her art that would be a gift for mom and the grandmothers. Mother’s Day was coming up soon and we needed inspiration. Her mother said that she would like a ring post to keep jewellery on her dresser top so we came up with this. 

First we outlined the daughter’s hand and about 3 inches of wrist on a piece of white paper. (We had a similar example from Thanksgiving, the daughter brought home her hand outline on a paper plate decorated as a turkey). Took our outline to the printer and photocopied it. One of the nice things about a photocopy is you can place it face down on a piece of wood, then use a hot iron (cotton setting) and iron the image onto the wood. 

Once the image was transferred, we cut it out on the bandsaw, then sanded all the rough edges. As my daughter was very young, I did the bandsaw work and she did the sanding. Once the hand was ready, we needed a base which we found in the scrap bin. We cut out about a 3 1/2” circle and using the wrist end of the hand, we marked and cut a notch for the hand to be glued to the base. We cut it off-center to allow room for a message to mom. We found a local guy who could engrave a message make us a brass tag for our base.  The tag was large enough to engrave the child’s name below the Mother’s day message helped to identify the sweet little hand that made the gift. 

Again, more sanding and fitting the notch to match the sweet little wrist followed by staining and finishing. 

We left the hand natural and used wipe-on polyurethane (2-3 coats), then glued everything together with a piece of felt for the bottom. It was pretty tough keeping the project a secret until Mother’s Day, but somehow we managed. The grandmothers and mom loved their new ring post which has a place of honor on their dressers. 

Fast forward 30 years. My son is a kindergarten teacher with a class of 20 or so looking for a great project for Mother’s day and this is what we did. It took a bit of work to get everything ready so the kids just had sanding to do. Attached are some pictures of the ring posts dry fitted and ready for the kids to finish. 

Can’t keep secrets from home in daycare, but you can have great surprises. All the moms love their new ring post and all the kids are proud of their work. Since the completion of this project, we think we have a great idea to adapt it for a dad gift as well. 

I did this bed today in just a few hours. I am new to this site and have lots of project to be posted. I thank my wife for the lovely display. I am stationed in the Navy overseas and good furniture is hard to come by. The Euro makes stuff expensive and the military store carries lots of expensive "cheap" stuff. I started with a picnic table for the kids this past summer and my Facebook went out of control with request to build stuff. So, I do a lot of look a likes. I get to build things and my fellow service members get nice furniture for the cost of wood.(I get a little for me too). I hope you enjoy my projects because there are many more to come. If you want plans just ask I keep them in my head and can type them down and email them to you. Thanks Ana White for the great ideas! Happy New Year everyone.

This was a super easy project and I like the way it turned out. I just got a 1x6 board in pine (that cost about $3.50) sanded it, stained it and marked all the inches with a pencil. I then used a painter's pen in black along with my square to get all the lines straight. Then I used some stencils to do the numbers - also with the painter's pen. The whole project took probably an hour to do (besides waiting for the stain to dry).