Community Brag Posts

I made this based on the $55 fancy x desk plan for my daughters room. It is 18" shorter (54") so I eliminated the diagonal braces at the back of the plan. It still is very sturdy. I made the top from rough sawn oak board that I had in the yard by handplanning the top and edges. You could just buy 1x12 oak if you wanted to, although it would be pricey. If you are in Connecticut let me know I have a few thousand feet of it! My daughter loves the desk!

This week was a collaboration between me and Brad at FixthisBuildthat.com. I made a slight variation of his hanging tool cabinet to store my nail guns. More details at my website: http://www.lanebroswoodshop.com/2015/03/nail-gun-cabinet.html

YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUHnkjojlWc

The bed in grey, also made the backboard taller (and doubled support on back) because the bed will have a box spring (photo 2).  Awesome plans, love the look already.  Excuse the background mess.  The back wall is part of the same project! Thanks again for the plans!!

Note to future builders, learn from my one fatal mistake, be really picky on your quality of wood.  I had some slight frame issues because on a bad board that resulted in about a 1/4 inch bow on one side.  My slats are all use rival but you can see some done touch both sides...that is the bow.  Still no one will likely notice but me.

Second, there was no info on spacing along the frame for attaching the 2x4 to the 2x6.  I used 12", maybe overkill.

We were using a 1970's dresser set which was constructed of mdf wood with a laminate teak exterior .  I decided to do a makeover that would match our bed.  Instead of simply painting, I decided to use solid wood (pine) and get rid of the poor laminate drawer fronts.

More photos and tips on my blog about this project:

http://www.woodworkingfourdummies.com/blog/dresser-set-makeover

Cheers,

Ian

Recently built this table my first build actually. I told my wife we needed a new table because we didn't have enough room for our youngest to move up to the table she said let's build one. Well I did the "building" and she did the staining painting and sanding. She is currently putting new fabric on our old chairs. And now she has me building a bed. Her words when I finished "I didn't know you could build stuff". My reply "that was part of the plan lol". Thanks for all the designs.

My wife and I love this table: http://www.woodlandcreekfurniture.com/graphics/DT00100NEW.pdf so I took the Farmhouse Table plan and modified it just a little bit. I used pocket screws to join the table top and eventually wound up installing 2x4 runners on the underside to sturdy the top even more. I also used my son to help keep the boards flush while I screwed them together. He though it was wonderful to help his dad out this way.

For the table frame I used a 1" straight bit in my router to put a little "flair" on the rail. The leg bracing is 1x1 scrap that I had left over from ripping the rail to size. I used my drill press on the bracing to make the recessed hole for the screws at the correct angle. I then covered the screw hole with a 5/8" red oak dowel.

I decided to go a little more traditional on the breadboard end just to see if I could do it. Its really not that hard just more time consuming. I used a 5/8" red oak dowel that I bought at the hardware store for joining the breadboard to the rest of the table top.

My table is made of a mixture of pine and spruce. I used shellac to seal the wood before staining. Shellac keeps these softwoods from splotching when they are stained. I then used Minwax Red Oak stain. I let the stain sit for about 15 minutes before wiping it off. The color turned out great. I used my Christmas money to buy an LVLP spray gun to hook up to my pancake compressor. I used the Spray-It 3000 to apply polyurethane. I put 5 coats on the frame and 10 coats on the top itself. In between each coat I used 0000 steel wool to buff the surface. The very last coat I left alone so it would shine. It left it with a little bit of an "orange peel" finish but I thought it made the table look more rustic so I left it alone.

All in all it took me about 60 hours over a 6 month period to get the table done. When you have a real job, kids, and a house to take care of it takes a while to do stuff like this.

I've got a plan for some chairs so I think I'm going to try chairs next. They say if you can build chairs you can build anything. I've built just about everything but chairs so maybe this saying will work in reverse. If the chairs go as fast as the table did, it might take another 6 months to get one done.

The wood for this table I got for free. My brother-in-law works in the lumber business and this wood was the throw away that none of the contractors wanted. All of it had been sitting in the sun and was warped, gray, and cracked. A friend from church who does woodworking for a living planed and jointed the boards straight and square for me. The lumber is construction grade pine and spruce. Most of the money I spent on this was for the spray gun, the finish, and the hardware that I used for joining the tabletop to the frame.

A help hint I found out after the fact. If you're sanding pine and spruce with a random orbit sander or any electric sander you are going to leave little "swirlies" throughout the wood. Either sand the wood by hand to prevent the "swirlies" or learn how to use a card scraper so you don't have to mess with sandpaper. The "swirlies" showed up when I applied the stain. Before then I couldn't see them. My wife thought the "swirlies" added to the rustic-ness of the table, so I left them alone.

I followed the plans exactly and made this sand box for my friend and her children. Simple! Thank you so much!!!

I followed the plans as written and my veggie bin came out looking awesome.

This project only took a day to build and not the whole day. The painting took a bit I had to do first coat at night then the second one in the morning and flipped and did other side twice...

Top is using old scrap 4 x 10 sanded down to 220 grit and the 2 x 6 is cut at 10 degree so it support the top using pocket hole jig, I used 4 3.5 inch deck screw

Thanks for the plans Ana. I substituted 5/4 x 6 for the 2x6 and it is plenty strong and sturdy. Also added an angled back to support 24x24" cushion. Very pleased with the finished chairs.

BTW: I have now used 4 of your plans. The X harvest table, an outside dining table and patio loungers (4 of them) and the box chairs. Cheers!

Saw the plans on this site and decided to make a jewelry cabinet for my wife for mother's day and she loved it.

I found the plans for this table after googling "rustic coffee table". I had planned on purchasing a table until I saw this photo and LOVED it.  It took a little time to convince my husband to take this on with me since neither one of us has experience building furniture.  We decided to purchase the wood from a higher end lumber yard since the big box stores didn't carry much kiln dried lumber.  We wanted to start on our project without having to wait for the lumber to dry out in the sun first.

This is definitely a two "man" job.  The only issue we had was figuring out the "x's" since our saw didn't go past 45 degrees.  We decided to just eye ball it and made the cuts.  The cuts came out perfect.  We also had some issue trying to figure out how to secure the "x's".  After a few strategically placed screws and some wood glue, they stayed put and look great!  We also took a lot of time sanding and picking out the perfect stain.  We decided not to do the oxodizing treatment (husband vetoed that) and instead mixed two shades of minwax satin stain.  I am so happy with the end result!