Community Brag Posts

Inspired by Dwell Studio's Mid Century Dresser, I built a smaller version for my daughter's small room. Working on showing photos of the building process on my little blog this weekend. =D

It took a while to come together and made several modifications but it is a great coop and was a major selling point of the house when we were relocated.  I had added a main tray under the roosts and a door to srape the poop out.  This made keeping the coop clean very easy.  

Our family uses the dining table for homework and work with laptops. I have drawers in a window seat, so I added the stick on dividers to create laptop storage in the drawer.  This was super quick and easy.

I used ripped 1/2” thick plywood pieces.

loved the results!  So easy and exactly what I needed!

Thanks to this site my wife found this headboard design. I modified the plan to suit our king size bed. We chose popular with a java stain.

I built this desk by combining a modified Julia nightstand and the schoolhouse desk. I added a little ribbon and some upholstery tacks around the upper edge. I rescued the chair from Goodwill and added the zebra cover. I also made the mirror using the barnwood frame plan.

It was time to upgrade our daughter's bed to something bigger. I have always loved the idea of platform beds and went searching the Ana White site for ideas. Needless to say, I made several modifications to allow for a huge amount of storage. The bed is designed to fit up to a queen mattress, but we went with full size since her room is a bit tight. Each drawer is 24"x24"x12" deep and mounted on 100 lbs. full extension slides. This allowed us to eliminate both dressers in her bedroom plus the hamper since one of the drawers is now for dirty clothes. I built this as two 80" cabinets and used a 3/4" plywood spacer to bridge the gap. What you can't see is the six 24"x24"x12" cubbies on the far side of the bed which allowed us to remove her bookcase and toy box. Once in place, I measured and built the footboard panel with 1x4 dimensional pine and beadboard and it is attached with screws from inside the cabinet. The headboard was last as I wanted to give her a shelf for her chargers, remote, phine, ipad, etc. This allowed us to remove her nightstand. Her small bedroom feels much larger now that this is the only piece of furniture she needs once I get her tv mounted on the wall.

My daughter needed a custom sized shelf to display her retail products in her busy day spa. The shelf needed to be narrow to not block walk around access to the massage table. It needed to be functional without looking like a book shelf. Ana's plan for the General Store Cubbies was just what I was looking for. I sized it down to fit the space and it turned out great.

I recently discovered your blog and got really inspired. After building a couple of beginner projects following your plans, i started to think about making something that can be used as medicine cabinet and does not take much space. Came up with the idea for this over the toilet storage rack.

My goal was to recycle/reuse some of the stuff that was sitting in my garage.
Started with building a frame using 1x6s (24 inch for shelves and 72 inch height). Used plastic table mats were used as sliding windows. Found a PVC trim (8 ft) for $2 at lowes that has been used as the rails/track for the windows. The back is piece of cardbord that was scrap from an old broken ikea bookshelf.

I am pretty happy that i recycled some stuff and made this in less than $15.

So I followed the plan except I tried to use more pocket hole screws. I managed to use them for all parts except the seat and back. Looking at them I see how I can use them for those areas too ( just a little pre planning next time)
I’m using Behr Wedgwood waterproofing stain and sealer to complete the project.
I love all your plans and can’t wait for my next project.

A play kitchen stove and sink for my 1.5 year old daughter for Christmas!

This was my second woodworking project ever. It was VERY involved. It took me about 3-6 months of planning, ordering, buying, figuring out, and finally building the thing.

I used magnetic primer on most of it. Some magnets do stick to it, but I learned some very important lessons: Magnetic primer is MESSY and it doesn't sand very well, so when you paint it on, it should be done in the smoothest possible way in the smallest area. I primed with it using a roller and when I sanded it, got metal shaving dust EVERYWHERE (because the metal shavings in the primer keep it magnetic, obviously).

Made the curtain and matching towel. Next on the list: Matching apron and kids oven mitts!

This "island" was inspired by the plans for the Easy Kitchen Island, with a bit of a twist. My roommate is really into cooking, and had a little butcher block that he wanted to upgrade. Our kitchen is fairly narrow, but there was a huge bare spot underneath some cabinets that was begging to be used. Our cabinets were overflowing and we needed more storage space. The kitchen island-butcher block combo solved both problems and fit nicely under our cabinet.

After a little research, we decided to go with an end-grain board made with maple. We looked around and ended up getting a bunch of wood off of eBay for about 65 bucks. The butcher block turned out to be a bear of a project. Without access to a table saw (not going to happen in this apartment) it took some sanding, then more sanding, then a trip to my dad's to use a table saw after all, then more sanding, then more...well, you get the picture. Once all the pieces were assembled, we glued a 1"x4" poplar border onto the sides to give it a more uniform appearance from the sides, as well as to hide the connection to the structure.

Finally the block was complete and it was time to build the structure of the island. The cuts and the assembly of the main pieces took a grand total of an hour and a half - a great relief after spending weeks on the butcher block. We decided to glue the slats onto the supports to make life easier. Once we got done with that it was time to finish the structure.

We decided to follow Ana's directions on crackled milk paint. We tried to follow them exactly, but weren't able to get the same amount of crackling on ours. No worries, though, we just sanded down some edges and gave the whole thing a good coat of Polycrylic.

Once all that was done, we screwed the block on and construction was complete! We gave the block and the poplar several coats of Boos Block Mystery Oil as the conditioner and we were done. The oil really brought out the color and the body of the wood, and we couldn't be happier with the results. Can't wait to chop a turkey on it!

I built this for Girlfriend this Christmas. It was fun to surprise her. I put some jewelry in it, wrapped it, and put it under the tree. I think it turned out really nice. I installed a recessed bead-board back and 1/8" glass in the door. All black hardware and a two tone finish.  She loves it but she filled it up real quick. I guess I could have built it bigger! 

Privacy Planter Wall by Mary McFarland on Facebook!

I was getting tired of cleaning marker off my oak table after art time so I decided to just make them a desk. I had been eyeing the x-desk plan for quite some time, I wanted to see how it worked out so I threw one together and was pleasantly surprised at how it came together. The drawer was a bit complicated but I am so glad I made it. My kids love it and it is a nice place to charge my laptop and sit and do bills.
My cousin was opening a call center and she wanted to cut startup costs and I told her we can make the x-desk and cubicles and save $1000's.
For the call center we started and assembly line and had them cut and assembled in 2 days. We used the kreg jig to create the cubicle walls and 2x4's flat we put rigid insulation in the open spaces, covered them with batting and muslin fabric. We completed 8 desks and 2 cubicle pods, we couldn't be happier with the results.

We used the plans from this site to build this for our daughter. We did however make the bed part a bit more sturdy to ensure that no one would get hurt and to make sure it could support any weight. We added 4 2x4s across the bed like rafters and screwed the slats on top of them.

Love my new leaning shelves and desk I knocked out in one weekend. My office mates want them too.