Community Brag Posts

I built a platform bed for our new matress and wanted to make some nightstands that matched. These worked out wonderfully.

I needed to recover the desktop space occupied by two printers--one a black and white laser printer, and the other a multi-function color printer, scanner, and copier.  There are also two routers that were taking up space.  The L-shaped oak desk with return I purchased from a furniture store had a full-size hutch available, but it wouldn't really help store the printers since they would be too high to use.

When looking around for plan ideas, my first stop is Ana's page.  The schoolhoouse desk hutch dimensionally matched what I was thinking about.  I liked the ideas of the cubby-holes to get papers and other items off the desk but readily available.

I trimmed it out a little fancier to match the desk and included feet simlar to a an oak hutch we have in the dining room.  I think this feature, along with the trim, helps break up the straight lines.

I prefer to use biscuits in lieue of pocket screws so I don't have all the holes to fill.  I think it makes a cleaner cabinet but clamping time adds a little to the assembly.  I attached the face frame with brad naile--18 ga for the face frame and a 24-ga pin nailer for the upper trim.

I also leave the face frame slighltly proud, about 1/8", which when sanded ends up about 1/16"  We had some kitchen cabinets like this and I prefer the look to flush.  Plus you don't have to use a flush-trim bit all the way around the cabinet.

The cabinet is oak 3/4" plywood and solid oak pieces while the back is 1/8" birch.  I couldn't find 1/8" oak panels at our local yards.  The back is recessed in the cabinet, and next time I will be sure to cut the rabbit for the back before assembling the case.  It was much harder with the ribs for the cubby-holes interfering with the router bit bearing.

I like the way it turned out and is functional without over-powering the room.  I also added rope lights underneath and on the back for task and mood lighting.

My husband and I needed a new coffee table. While browsing this website we found one we liked. We changed it up a little to make it taller. Hubby also added more wood inside of the table to make it heavier.

I always wanted a fireplace. Living in Puerto Rico, obviously a real one is not needed. I saw the fireplaces on Ana's site and decided to make myself one from materials I had on hand. 

I started out with Ana's Fireplace anywhere but when done I thought it needed a little beefing up for my purpose so I added a few more 1x3's and made the top 12" so the dvd theater system would fit on top. 

Finished  it off  by sanding, priming and black glossy paint. I wanted the panel gold but the metallic paint I had was too watery so went with silver, I am planning on adding a monogram or such on the panel also but haven't decided on what exactly yet, I made a few faux cardboard logs, made a few wholes in them and wrapped red and gold christmas lights in them for a fire effect. It really adds a nice touch to the living room. The wall behind it is made of brown craft paper, painted with brown, silver and gold, torn into pieces and applied with glue mix. I did it last year and gave myself a year to see if I still liked it. I do, so this year I gave it a polyutherene gloss coat and did a similiar treatment with different colors to the front porch. 

LOVE THIS TABLE! The plan was fairly easy.

My first coffee table.

I love how this bed turned out. I made the footboard panel the same size as the headboard because I wanted my footboard above the mattress.(just use shorter 4x4 post for the legs than you do the headboard) I also added some molding inside the panel to give it a little extra flare. The boards on the panels are connected with pocket holes and pocket hole screws and the trim I put on covers them completely so there was no need to fill them in. I ordered some bed rail brackets from Rockler and attached the side rails right onto the 4x4 legs instead of the panels and it worked out perfect and it's very easy to take apart if I ever need to move the bed. Thanks Ana for the plans. Any chance you will be doing nightstands to match?

I decided not to use the wheels to keep my son from moving it around, stained it.

Awesome project. Very simple, doing the sanding and finish requied more time than the cutting and assembly.

This table is a dream come true. I have always wanted one of these but could never find one I absolutely loved. I have now.

Fun project that turned out pretty good, we also made the matching end table

We loved the shanty sideboard and corresponding hutch. We painted the project in an offwhite with a brown glaze (consisting of 4 parts Behr faux glaze to 1 part minwax espresso stain). The only modifications to the plan are 3/4" trim pieces in the top part to hide the plywood, remove 1/4 inch from the sideboard shelves to allow room for doors to shut, and apply trim to the cabinet doors to dress it up a little.

We didnt include the stairs on this bed as there wasnt enough room in my daughters bedroom.  We are very happy with the finished product, and so is my daughter.  We didnt quite make it as high as the plans as we were worried out the fan in my daughters room.

The wood total was about $200. We added some height to the headboard for the build. The frame is done by screwing 1x2 boards along the side rails and laying (4) 2x4s across for the box spring to sit on. Absolutely love our new bed!

Very simple plans and project. Cost about 30.00 to make and about 2 hours to build. Painted it matte black and sanded for a distress look.

Snooker and Pool ball cabinet with lift out ball storage trays.

Wanted somewhere to store the differnt balls and wanted lift out trays so the balls could be easily carried to the table.

Apart from the top the cabinet is made from Poplar.  The top is made from Pine and the sides are 1/4 inch Birch ply.

Used full extension drawer slides.

Actually made the ball trays first and then made the cabinet to fit based on the width of those and the depth they needed to fully extend by to allow the trays to be lifted out.

Made a couple of mistakes on this one and had to scrap the first drawer I made as put pocket holes on the pieces for the sides not the front and back.  Kept the drawer though to use for another project.  Lesson learnt!!

The poplar legs were on offer at Home Depot and only $2.50 each.  Bargain!!

I've been a DIYer for as long as I can remember and recently I decided to start documenting them on my new YT channel. I try to keep the projects as simple and fun as possible for parents with little to no experience in DIY. This project was super easy and my son absolutely loves it. We use this desk for learning and playing (reference video). And since it folds up it saves space for his play area. I hope that you too feel inspired to try a project like this.