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Just My Size Closet!

Built this from Ana's plans with a few modifications.

Started with a big empty box after ripping the old stuff out and finished with this look.

Adjustable shelves and all !

Using the Michaela Island plans, I modified them for this croquet-inspired island, complete with black iron foot rail, sewing spindle drawer-pulls, and iron-supported cantilevered top. The extra boards making up the overhang are also supported by a trio of 1/2-inch dowels drilled through several of the planks.

The top was stained using several colors, with sanding in-between, and finished with paste wax.

The bottom shelf is supported, albeit not visibly, using a croquet mallet head.

We changed the plans for this kitchen island a bit to best suit our needs. We removed the middle shelf and the bottom half of the center divider in order to create a large, open area for storage. We also extended the bottom slats to the full depth of the island, or 21".

The drawer depth was also increased to the full depth, or approximately 20". Instead of using 2x2 cleats for the drawers, we installed 20" self-closing drawer slides from Lowe's. This allows the drawers to be fully extended as well as have a soft-close feature. 

The top measures 26 1/4" x 56 1/4" and was made by securing two pine panels together using pocket holes. We couldn't find an appropriate size at Lowe's, so we purched two panels instead. After sanding and staining, it is impossible to tell where the boards are joined together. 

In the future, we might distress or add an antique finish the white base. Overall, we are very happy with the kitchen island. It's wonderful to have a little extra storage in the kichen! 

Thanks Ana!

-Anna

I made the worm composter from Ana's plan and built a cabinet out of old pallets. The stack of worm composters drawers slide in and out of the cabinet on a heavy duty drawer glide set. I used cedar fence board. For 3 bucks a board, it was worth the work to rip them down and sand them. The bottom drawer has a tray built out of old flashing and slopes towards a hose bib in order to collect the worm tea. I designed the drawer insert out of cardboard and cut it out of flashing, using a pop rivet gun to put it together, sealing the seams with flashing caulking. The drawer has a sheet of aluminum window screen under the top square of cedar.

I modified the collapsibile planting table by Lady Goats.  My wife asked for it to have a removable shelf to keep with the take down Idea and also to come up with a way to have a spicket added.  this was a really fun project to make, I even added carvings and painted to allow it to stand out and to give it some color.

Well, this crib is STILL unfinished, and the date-stamp says I built it December 5th.... So... Uhh.. I should really get on that!

I had initially built this crib for a friend's daughter's birthday gift, but the baby (8 months old at the time) got REALLY sick, so I wasn't able to finish it in time (don't worry, we got her a Pillow Pet - she got a gift still!). It was just before Christmas, so instead of going out and spending more money that we were tight on, I just bought 3 1x2s and used scraps for the rest of it.

The crib's basically been sitting in the baby's room looking cute until about a month ago. That's when she decided that her stuffed owl (from Build-A-Bear) needed to be put to bed every night before I put HER to bed. It's become such a routine that I have no idea how she'd react if we couldn't put her owl to bed! So I'm scared to try to start filling all the holes and painting in fear that we'd have a mental breakdown if I didn't finish in time for bed! EEK!

Since we don't have a garage or any really good place to keep our tools, they end up all over the house while we're working on a project. So, we decided to build a cabinet that would look nice in our house, and also house our tools. We chose the armoire plan because it has plenty of space.

This project took us forever, so it's hard to really estimate the actual working time. We began working on it back in June, then we were evacuated because of a forest fire.... By the time we got back into our house and we were organized again it was the end of July.... and now finally the end of August it's finished. It took us a while, but it's a great addition to our house!

We modified this cabinet by using 1/4 inch beadboard backed with 1/4 plywood for the doors. We also modified the size of the armoire to make it deeper.

I had built two outdoor chairs with love seat (modified from the sofa plans) with 2x4s. The cushion seats were 24" x 24". Where to store them? I modified the Modern Cedar Outdoor Storage Bench plans to make the box wider, higher, longer to accommodate the cushions. With five boards comprising the top, it's a bit wider than the box so I didn't need to carve in an opening.

Outdoor table and two matching benches. Easy peasy, albeit the table is pretty heavy to move. Stained with ECO.

Mark N

This is my very first wood working project! I know its not perfect and I learned from my mistakes. I found a miter saw at a garage sale and after three hours of plugging it in and unplugging it, I finally worked up the courage to make it make a noise! Then I eventually worked up the courage to cut wood lol! I'm pretty proud of myself for building something and I am going to continue practicing until I can make really cool stuff!

My last piece of my collection

My second building project... this one took quite a while, building in the evenings after the kids went to bed.

The playhouse is based off of Ana's Playhouse Building series, with some modifications to fit the space in my backyard and accommodate climbing wall, monkey bars, and slide.

To put the main deck structure into the ground for sturdiness while protecting from moisture, I dug out 5 holes to fit single hole cinder blocks (4 corners plus an extra 4x4 for the monkey bars; you can see an leftover block on the ground in one of the pictures). I placed some brick in the holes, then the cinder blocks on top. I then partially filled the cinder blocks with sand, put the pre-built deck in the cinder block holes (with help - it's heavy!), and then filled the rest of the cinder block holes with sand. It's worked remarkably well - the deck has been up for about a year now. I also sprayed some clear waterproof sealant on the bottom part of each beam near the ground for extra protection (deck, monkey bars, climbing walls, and swingset A-frame). This has allowed me to still run sprinklers near/around the playset and even grow grass underneath the swings!

Materials used:
* Playhouse: pine, plywood, Suntuf solar grey polycarbonate corrugated roofing panels (I live in Arizona, so little rain to worry about but lots of heat - the sheeting lets light in but blocks most of the UV rays, corrugated shape also provides venting at top when placed sideways)

* Deck/Swingset/Monkey bars: treated lumber, composite decking, pine for railings, monkey bars purchased from Amazon

* Climbing wall: pine, treated lumber, handholds/railing bought off ebay/Amazon

* Swings/slide/bongos/wheel, telescope: purchased from Amazon

Modifications:
* Turned playhouse 90 degrees to be in back of the deck, with swingset coming off the side. This meant the support beam for the swingset had to pass through the playhouse - modified the frame for that wall slightly and created a notch for the beam to pass through.

* Slide comes out one end of playhouse - made the "window" on that end larger than the plans called for in order to give room for the slide.

* Monkey bars come off one side of the deck - used extra 4x4 here to create support for the bars, and used extra bars to make a ladder on this side

* Climbing wall instead of ladder for main entrance

* Put large window in back wall of the playhouse

* Added cross bracing to side of decking on swingset end to make it more solid/cut down on sway when swinging

We chose to use 2x4 construction because we simply needed a sturdier build. Enough said. :) I wanted to use cedar, but when we went to the lumberyard, they didn't carry 2x4s in cedar, just 1x4 and said it was hard to find. Being that I had wanted this built by Labor Day and it was already July, we bought the pressure treated wood. I know, I know, chemicals galore. We worked on it a little at a time. We modified it for a higher back, but now I wonder if that was needed, because although the cushions are deep they do go down some when you sit on them. Ah well, we are still happy with it. Because of the higher back, we opted to just use the armless section on the end, however we might build a modified arm later on. We'll see how it goes.

Being my first DIY project - it was a pretty big task not using a saw before or doing any building. Following the plans was easy, just took a lot of time to learn how to do things for the first time.

I modified her plans to have 3 drawers on the one side to match the pb design.

After finishing the table, I knew I needed to create the hutch that is sold along with this desk. After some rough paperwork estimates I went ahead and built the hutch.

Looks pretty amazing and similar to the real deal.

Check out my blog for further pics and details of paint, primer and drawer slides I used. Leave a comment if you'd like me to work on getting a hutch plan organized.

With doing the hutch without real plans, this project took me a while to get those cuts organized and completed.