Community Brag Posts

Our puppy needed to move out of our bed, and I love the looks of the Lydia toddler bed, so we made this one for her!! It's fantastic and I'm so happy with how it all turned out! It was Mike's first time using a Kreg Jig and he loves it!

Used 2x4x10s instead of 2x4x6s. Shortened the length of the seat and legs by a tiny bit and was able to save a bit of money and waste less lumber by making better use of fewer pieces of lumber.

I made 14 personalized crayon blocks from Ana White's plan for Christmas presents. It was affordable, easy, and everyone loved them!  I'm not sure who loved them more, the adults or the kids.  I made them for preschool classmates, friends, nieces, and nephews.

I am a mom of a 1 year old and 3 year old so it's hard to estimate how much time it took me.  I worked in half hour shifts during naptimes over a couple of weeks.  It's totally doable!

Here are some tips:

- Buy pine wood with sharp edges. Some of my wood had slightly rounded edges and that made for bigger grooves on the sides.  These were the ones that were harder to paint the letters.

- I followed the size dimensions for everything except the holes. I tried several times with Ana's plans, but the wood just kept cracking. I narrowed it down to just 26 crayon holes and spaced it about an inch from either end. This worked perfectly for me 14x!

- I tried many ways to drill the holes. My winning combination was to start each hole with a spade drill bit (drilled 75% through) and then finished it off with a regular spiral drill bit of the same size.  I found it cracked way less on the backside if I didn't use the spade bit all the way through.

- I used a simple piece of sandpaper to lightly sand in the holes.

LETTERING

I have a Silhouette machine. I cut out the words/names on vinyl, weeded out the letters and stuck them on the wood as a stencil.  I wrote their name on one side and "crayons" on the other.  Then I rubbed clear kraft glue in the letters to "fill the gaps" so no paint would leak through.  Then I painted over the glue and wood with acrylic craft store paint.  Worked perfectly. Looks crisp.  Some of the moms thought they were stickers.  I finished with a matte clear spray finish.

What does NOT work:

-I tried the method of printing on paper, tracing with pencil, and then hand painting. Mine looked awful. Maybe I just don't have a steady enough hand.

-I tried using permanent marker instead of paint.  Nope. It seeps into the wood and leaves you without crisp lines.

-I also tried cutting the letters on vinyl, sticking them on the wood then putting a clear coat on top.  This was OK... but it didn't look as good as painted.

Hope this can help someone!

My husband and I made a toddler picnic table for the grandbabies out of reclaimed wood from pallets. I have a bench sander that I used for a lot of that wood, but wow what a lot of work. So for Mother's Day, I asked for a Dewalt thickness planer, and I have to say I think that's been one of my best purchases in a while.
I had no idea how beautiful some of that pallet wood could actually be until I started running it through the planer.
I needed a book / magazine shelf in my guest bathroom so I used a plan submitted by a guest, modified it a little and used my reclaimed wood.(Flat Wall Bookholders) I used an oak poly stain in order to bring the grain out some. I couldn't be happier!
Thanks Ana!

At first I was going to stain these ledges so I only used pocket holes to attach the back of the shelf and I attached the front using small finish nails. The back and the bottom are made from a 1x3 and the front is a 1x2.

Check out my blog post for more information.

Husband and I built this chest in a weekend for Son's under the sea themed nursery. Easy plans to follow for a great project!

My dining room has no storage and I've been trying to find a place to store all of my bowls, serving dishes, etc; for some time now. I saw a leaning ladder shelf system at Crate and Barrel that I fell in love with but it was $500 which was out of the question. Last summer I built Ana's outdoor couches with absolutely zero experience and they came out great, so I decided to take a chance and try something else. This was my first time using a circular saw, and also my first time using a Kreg Jig! Honestly, halfway through this project I was concerned I bit of more than I could chew but I stayed calm and just kept following the plans. I'm so thrilled with how they came out! I ened up using a scrap piece of the 1 X 12 board for the "desk" piece to make the center a little bigger since I wanted it to serve as a serving board of sorts. I reenforced it with a support board since it was a little longer than the original plan called for.  I am beyond thrilled with how this came out, I honestly like it better than the one I saw at C&B since it's custom to my space! This was so easy if I could do it, anyone can. My total cost came to about $130. Not too shabby for a knock off! I'm already on to my next project. I don't think I can buy "factory" furniture again now how much better cost and quality I can get doing it myself! Thanks Ana!

I modified this plan quite a bit. I chunked up all of the wood for a sturdier table. I also did braces on the underside of the table and benches so there would be no nail/screw holes on the top. For the D, I taped a chip-wood letter from Hobby Lobby to the wood while I burned over the entire top.

Please click the link to my blog post "One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure" to get the full story and more pictures.

I took the design of the Farmhouse Media Console and modified it to work for my needs. It is made from solid oak with a dark maple stain and semigloss laquer clear coat. I made it wider to work for my 70" TV, deeper to fit my electronics down the middle, right door hides the subwoofer (so it isn't a big box in the room) and the right door is shelves). I added trim to the top/bottom edges to get it a nice look as well.

I built the preschool picnic table for my first table, then used my own measurements to make a bigger table that seats 6.

My son wanted a loft bed for his birthday ... until he saw this hanging bed! When he and his sister went to their cousin's house for the night, we decided to give it a try.

It's actually not that hard. Being rookies, we didn't realize how heavy the 2x4s are. If we were to do it again, we would use 1x4s instead. But, our bed is quite sturdy. We exhausted our cordless drill mid-way through the project.

But, this plan doesn't need many cuts. Most of the cutting was done at Home Depot.

The tricky part was actually getting it on the wall. We borrowed 2 squat racks and put the bed on those until it could be anchored. We also bought L brackets and used those rather than the lag bolts. The rope gives it a nice look, but actually won't become load bearing unless the bed starts to fall.

Our son loves the bed and it gives him plenty of extra space to work with in his room.

I was actually looking for loft-bed plans when I stumbled upon this little gem. My kids were out of town for a week at the grandparent's house. I had some free time on my hands and before jumping into a big project like a loft bed, wanted to get my feet wet with a smaller project. I way overshot the 2 hr assembly time on this one. My extended cut/assembly time was because I triple coated each surface with paint and then put a clear coat sealant over the whole project. The paint choice was because my daughter's favorite color is blue and my son's is green. Plus, the racing stripes across the base and the cantilever took some extra time with added paint. With the screw holes, I took a 1/2 inch thick dowel and chopped off a bunch of 1/4 inch thick "coins," match painted them & glued them over the screw holes. As a result, it appears that there are dowels holding it together. With the seats, I used my trusty jigsaw and cut a ~34 inch long hourglass shaped piece of wood (wide at the top/bottom, narrow in the middle), then cut that in half to use as the form-fitted seats. I shaped the outdoor fabric (awning material that matched my paint job) around the seats, filling with 3 inch thick batting. The kids are coming home tomorrow and I hope they like their new toy.

This is our first Ana White project and we're pretty happy with the results. We modified the plans a bit to use 1/4" plywood for the sides instead of the heavy 3/4" ply. Specifically built for our kitchen since we couldn't find one that we really liked or could afford. Pottery Barn seriously sells this for $1200?!?! Score!

Made two of these and I made them a bit thinner as I wanted these to be on the end of the sofa where there was not a lot of space. Matched the hardware with my rustic X console table I made a few years back.

My children's books at my children's level! They take pride in building for themselves, and I couldn't be happier~

Ana's library cart was a breeze to build! I used my new pocket-hole jig with great success. This cart is strong, and holds a load of books.

The guys at Blue cut the wood. Thanks to the staple sticking off the end of some of my lumber, the cuts were off. I had to use coarse sand paper to take 1/8inch off some ends. Lesson learned~
The finish was the most fun. I used paint leftover from other projects, all water-based products. The top of the shelf has my 4yr-old son's hand-prints, the smaller face has my 2yr-old son's hand-prints. Alex loves it most, going to it and patting it and pressing his hand on it first thing every morning. They are both very proud of our work :D