Community Brag Posts

I took the plans and got a little creative with them. Really easy to build.

I really wanted to put a barn door in my husband's home office, but have you looked at the prices of the kits?  No way was I going to spend that for a door.  So I decided to fabricate it myself.  For the rail hardware- I used a 72" steel rod, copper pipe fittings, and lag screws.  For the door hardware, I used 12"ish, long pieces of steel, pulleys, and carriage bolts.

The door itself is made from plywood siding, 1 x 4's, 1 x 6's, and 1 x 3's.  The entire door and hardware cost around $80 to make myself.  It's functional and looks amazing!  The entire tutorial is up on my blog!

This was inspired by Ana's wall jewelry cabinet, but with a few changes.  I specifically wanted the long shaker style pegs so that I could hang several necklaces on each peg.  I also wanted an earring bar, and fashioned one out of an 1/8" brass rod (found on amazon), after experimenting with a few different options.  This particular option was small enough to easily hold the earrings, but sturdy enough to hold the weight.  To "cap off" the brass rod, I cut a few pieces off a thick dowel rod, and ran a drill through them. 

I've been using a bunch of FREE pallets on some projects here lately and decided to make the Reclaimed Wood Headboard with the pallet wood that I had. Every piece of wood came from pallets and it turned out pretty great. We're still undecided about if/how we want to stain it....but for now it's all natural'. I made mine a couple inches shorter then the plans called for and an inche or two narrower based on the measurements of our Full Size Bed. I documented this project as best as I could at: http://www.tommyandellie.com/Site/Home/Entries/2011/7/20_Entry_1.html

We pretty much followed the plan with the exception of making the legs 28" tall and then removing the middle bar and then adding two additional supports 4" higher than the lower ones and put them on the opposite sides as the lower one. It formed a ladder like thing which we wanted since this was for kids starting at age 3. I hope that makes sense it doesn't really sound right to me but anyways moving one. It was really fun to make these I made three for my older sister since the walmart specials that she bought were horrible and falling apart after a short amount of time. They were easy two do probably about a day of cutting and assembling and then a day of staining and polying however if you were only doing one then it would be a day project at most. My other tip is that after cutting all the pieces I sanded them which made it nice after putting the top on and not having to worry about if the parts in between the two pieces touching was sanded enough not to give the kids splinters. And the best part was that I got a new tool which I love, the Kreg pocket hole jig. It was fun. I did have some splitting on the test wood pieces (scraps from cutting pieces for the stool) so instead of having the aprons flush I used an old cd case under the apron and attached them that way it was close to center but no worries about splitting and was super easy to do.

To date this has been my favorite and fullfilling DIY project!! Skills were learned, $$ was saved and it looks fabulous!!!   It wasnt easy but it wasn't impossible.  April WIlkerson provides a detailed tutorial on her website along with a fantastic youtube video on her channell. I hope this inspires someone else to take on this challenge!!  If you have any any questions please feel free to ask me!!  Enjoy.

Total cost including all supplies and stain (minwax dark walnut) was $140, home depot did all the cuts for us... total time 5 hours!

This is a slightly modified version of Ana's Providence bench.
http://ana-white.com/2012/04/plans/providence-bench

In Step 1, instead of having the bottom supports flush with the end, I decided to center them on the 2x4s.

This means the bottom rail needs to be shortened accordingly.

I sanded everything down with 120, and 220 grit sand paper.
I find it easier and quicker to sand larger pieces of lumber than smaller pieces.
Next everything was cut to size, and then primed. I let the primer dry for a few hours, and added the second coat of primer.
I primed all the surfaces, exposed and unexposed. Now some of you may think this was overkill. But since I live in Arizona, I didn't want the wood warping. This also protects if from all the elements.

Next day, it was all assembled, this took a few hours, we used a kreg jig to make most of the holes, I didn't have the right kreg screws, so I just used outdoor deck screws.

Finishing:
I filled all the holes with wood putty. This needed to be done several times, because putty shrinks, more so in the heat here.

Eventually, sanded it all down with 220 grit lightly, just so that there were no tell tale signs.

Next painted the bench red a few times. I needed about 2 coats to get it just right..

My contractor commented on how sturdy this bench was, coming from him, that's quite a compliment, it turned out to be A LOT sturdier than I thought it would be based on how flimsy those angled supports were...
It matches my red front door and is a great place to have my morning coffee and put my shoes on.

I made this twisted end table for my #oneboardchallenge project.  It was a learning experience and I'm honestly surprised that it turned out as well as it did!  There are so many good #oneboardchallenge projects being submitted, I don't know if mine will get lost among the crowd.  Either way, it wont get lost around my house :)  It is a good conversation piece!

this was my first  furniture piece that I have built. Next is a round farmhouse kitchen table super excited to make it. 

As my daughter got older she refused to sleep in her crib, so I decided I wanted matching beds for her and my son. We live in a small 2 bedroom house so they have to share. So while looking up ideas for nice beds at a cheap cost I followed links until I reached ana-white.com and I was amazed. I sat on my computer for hours yelling at my husband to "COME LOOK AT THIS" (which I still do today). So I picked a plan and started on in. With some help cutting from my dad I had the first bed done in a couple days. Sadly I have not finished the second due to a random mind and trying to find a way to make my boy and girl room a little more grown up and uni-sex friendly.

Rustic X Coffee Table Brag! Thank you so much for the plans Ana! Keep building everyone :)

We built this piece exactly to fit our space. We needed more storage and wanted something that would hold our TV so it didn't have to be mounted any more. We used Behr paint to finish it. It is made out of pine and is very sturdy. It took us about a week to build but could have been done In a few days if we could have dedicated 100% of our time to it. 

Building Bunk beds and custom beds is what i do. I router the corners so that they are rounded, plane the face's of the boards,and sand to perfection. then i glue and screw it all together. you can check out the site at http://www.dreamworksbunkbeds.com

A co worker reeeeally wanted this and asked me to build it. It is only my second build.

I made this house using oak plywood for the floors a using a straight edge and paper knife to score it to look like planks and made the lengths vary by using a chisel. The roof is made from 1/4" underlayment painted with red oil base paint and cut to make it look like shingles. It is on heavy duty 4" casters. I have made two identical houses for the same lady who purchased them for an aging aunt. This is the first of the two and was lost in a house fire. The second one was to replace this one. If I make another house I will be installing working lights in it. This is a very large house and fun to build