Community Brag Posts

We couldn't be happier with our outdoor lounge, and the plans for the 2x4 sofa and chair couldn't have been easier. Most of all, I'm so proud to have been able to make this myself! Thank you Ana!

My father in law and I built this kitchen set for my two daughters, ages 3 yrs and 9 months. It was so fun to work with my father in law. I have built a few things before (table, chairs, doll bed, etc.) but nothing of this quality or magnitude. He is a great woodworker and knows how to do all the neat finishing touches that just make the project look really professional. I learned a ton working with him and had a blast!
I was inspired by Ana's kitchen sets and used a combo of then and the Lowes plans and I was very happy with how it turned out. I changed a few things: put two doors under the sink, made "gas" burners instead of "electric", used half the sink cabinet top for the sink and left the other half for counter space, added a clock to the stove, made the oven door open down.
The sink is a food service warming pan 1/4 size and the faucet came from Wal-Mart for $10. I will probably replace it with a nicer one from the ReStore when I get a chance
Break down of costs:
Lumber: $100
Hinges and pulls: $40
Paint and primer: $45
Burners: $20
Sink: $24

Took a 3 day weekend to put this together. We used biscuit joiner so that we wouldn't have any gaps in the top. Left the back open so our consoles could breath in their little spots. Modified the plans so it's only 4 foot long and fits perfectly under our TV.

Loved building this headboard for my daughter's bed.  She loves it!

This is my first completed project from Ana's website!! I used a 1x3 around the picture and then a 1x2 for the trim. I bought a corner clamp to hold the corners together while I nailed.
The picture I made it for is 17" x 14 1/4" so I just took off 1/4" all the way around the picture to measure the length and width of the frame.

I think it turned out pretty good, but there were a few things that didn't turn out as planned. I didn't wipe up the glue that seeped out of the cracks good enough, and so my stain has a few "unstained" areas. Also, my last piece of trim didn't fit very well, so I had to cut another one that fit better.

Since this is my first project, I'm pretty proud of the way it turned out :)

Kids Stool. Not the hardest project, but a fun one.

I am so happy with how the paint job turned out. Did the support boards yellow to look like his utility belt. And the Leg have accented Blue like his gloves/boots.

My wife painted the logo on after tracing the pattern. She did an amazing job.

The top isn't one piece, because I didnt have a thick enough piece that was 13" in diameter. So its actually three boards from an old pallet, glued and pocket hole screwed together.

I found this table on Pinterest and wanted to "knock it off." I figured out my angles and used the table saw to bevel the edges of the wood. In the blog post, I explain how I would have done a couple things differently if I could do it over, but overall, the project turned out really well. Once the angles are figured out (I did that work for you), it really isn't too difficult. And it makes a great statement piece. All for about $25 in lumber. :)

So, this project started out years ago with my oldest daughter. She was in daycare and frequently came home with her latest drawing or art. I wanted to make something from her art that would be a gift for mom and the grandmothers. Mother’s Day was coming up soon and we needed inspiration. Her mother said that she would like a ring post to keep jewellery on her dresser top so we came up with this. 

First we outlined the daughter’s hand and about 3 inches of wrist on a piece of white paper. (We had a similar example from Thanksgiving, the daughter brought home her hand outline on a paper plate decorated as a turkey). Took our outline to the printer and photocopied it. One of the nice things about a photocopy is you can place it face down on a piece of wood, then use a hot iron (cotton setting) and iron the image onto the wood. 

Once the image was transferred, we cut it out on the bandsaw, then sanded all the rough edges. As my daughter was very young, I did the bandsaw work and she did the sanding. Once the hand was ready, we needed a base which we found in the scrap bin. We cut out about a 3 1/2” circle and using the wrist end of the hand, we marked and cut a notch for the hand to be glued to the base. We cut it off-center to allow room for a message to mom. We found a local guy who could engrave a message make us a brass tag for our base.  The tag was large enough to engrave the child’s name below the Mother’s day message helped to identify the sweet little hand that made the gift. 

Again, more sanding and fitting the notch to match the sweet little wrist followed by staining and finishing. 

We left the hand natural and used wipe-on polyurethane (2-3 coats), then glued everything together with a piece of felt for the bottom. It was pretty tough keeping the project a secret until Mother’s Day, but somehow we managed. The grandmothers and mom loved their new ring post which has a place of honor on their dressers. 

Fast forward 30 years. My son is a kindergarten teacher with a class of 20 or so looking for a great project for Mother’s day and this is what we did. It took a bit of work to get everything ready so the kids just had sanding to do. Attached are some pictures of the ring posts dry fitted and ready for the kids to finish. 

Can’t keep secrets from home in daycare, but you can have great surprises. All the moms love their new ring post and all the kids are proud of their work. Since the completion of this project, we think we have a great idea to adapt it for a dad gift as well. 

Inspired by Ana's Pull-out Cabinet Drawer Organizer I made pull-out drawers for all of my lower cabinets and for my pantry cabinet. My pantry cabinet is 22" deep which makes it very easy to eventually come across soup that expired four years ago, or to find three bags of sugar when I thought I was out. The pull-out drawers make it so easy to access and organize everything in the cabinets. Absolutely love them! In the organizing spirit I also made spice racks for the cabinet doors and hangers for measuring cups/spoons. The hardest part for me was installing the drawer slides - they have to line up perfectly!

This is the first in a series of crates I’m building for my Expedit. It’s made from wood from the scrap pile behind our garage, so it cost nothing for the wood. It set me back fifty cents for the handle, which I sprayed with chalkboard paint. I plan to make six, but ideally I would fill all sixteen cubes up. I was totally inspired by Vicki from Made at This Place, with her Chalkboard Produce Crates for her Expedit. Thanks Vicki!

We homeschool our 3 kids, and my wife needed a space where she could conduct school, keep all the kids' (and hers) school materials without creating a massive mess at the dining room table, and where she could easily see and interact with the kids and they with her.  She found a 64" x 64" square desk with four pedestals online, but it retailed for over $1400!  No way we're paying that much! She asked me if I could build it, and when I found the Schoolhouse Desk Single Pedestal plans and compared it with the picture of the square desk, I worked out a few modifications to build what we needed. Here it is! Use the basic Single Pedestal plans as a base, with the mods below: 

The top is 64"x64" (connected two pieces of 3/4" maple at 32"x64" using kreg jig & wood glue)

Each pedestal is 22 1/2" W x 25 1/2"H. Drawer sizes modified to match. Instead of a single drawer at the top of the pedestal, I modifed to make two drawers on the bottom with a cubby hole remaining at the top. Thus, place the 16 1/2" 1x2 cross bar at 8 1/4" from the bottom (instead of from the top). Add a 16 1/2" x 22 1/2" shelf at 15 3/4" from the bottom of the pedestal. This will form the cubby.

Drawers: 14" 2x2s on the short side, 21 1/2" 2x2s on the long side. Total dimension 15 1/2"x21 1/2". Attach 1/4" plywood at 15 1/2" x 21 1/2" for the bottom.

Base dimensions (2x2s): 19 1/2" 2x2s on the long side; 15" 2x2s on the short side; 3 3/4" legs at corners

Hallelujah!! Finally, somewhere to store all our alcohol-related necessities :) We adapted Ana's Benchmark Storage Unit to work as a liquor cabinet. We kept the basic design the same, but added some stemware storage across the top (a feature we loved in a Crate and Barrel liquor cabinet that was $$$$$) and some decorative molding to bulk it up a little bit. We lovvvvvve it! Thanks Ana!

PS: everyone please check out our blog for more details on this and other projects!

http://strawbridgestuff.com

I had inherited some bed frame wood from our local Re-store and have been working it into projects here and there. We needed some actual night stands and I loved the look of the Reclaimed Look Wood Nightstand, but they were a little too tall for our bed. The height of the original plan is 28" and I ended up taking out one drawer for a total height of 20". I also found two sets of drawer slides at the Re-store and decided that an open shelf on the bottom would better suit our needs, so I crossed the reclaimed plan with the farmhouse plan to create a shelf on the bottom. The bottom is built the same way that the sides are, but attached so that the 2x2 is on the underside.

I didn't have enough wood from the bed frame to make two full tables, so I used Douglas fir 2x2's for the legs (the best the local big box home improvement had that day for my price) and white board for the table tops and every other board for the sides and shelves. This was my second real building project, so they were really easy to put together, but it was a lesson in making everything super square because of the drawer slides. The finish I used also goes great with a 130 year old dresser that you can see a bit of next to the finish table. The wood only needed one coat to reach the color closest to that dresser and it hid the fact that I used three different types of wood in this project. Overall they are just what we needed in this space. The bed frame is IKEA, but I am thinking about making the Reclaimed Look Bed Frame to match the tables in the future.

Thank you Anna for designing such beautiful plans, and making them available for free. My husband likes the chair so much he doesn’t want it outside! I guess I’ll have to make a few more for our deck.