Community Brag Posts

My wife and I wanted to replace an ugly metal wire shelf in our kitchen, fortunately Ana had plans for a nice-looking kitchen island!  The two new challenges for me with this project were the notches for the shelf supports, and the drawers.  I was able to figure both out and am glad to now have those skills in my toolbelt.  The top was a pre-made red oak board from Menards.  The other shelves are red oak, the rest of the frame is pine.

Slightly lengthened from the plan, used 6" exposed lag bolts for a sturdier frame, covered the bolts on the sides with a dowel cap over the bolt to mimic a dowel construction. 

I saw the plans for this and I had to have it. It was the first project that my husband and I completed together. I think we did a pretty good job. It just needs handles and it will be complete. If we can do this in the hot Texas heat then anyone can do it. I'm proud of us!

I modified the height to 36 to work with my workbench height. I also used 1x4 poplar in four pieces for the seat. I stained half golden oak and half cherry. I made the seat 14 inches around. I had trouble getting the pocket hole bit into the last leg of the stool once the full box shape was assembled. The top smallest pieces I had to tighten by hand. Also the seat even when larger than 12 inches shows some of the base 2by2. Otherwise it looks great. My height is what I needed and the stain and clear coat are perfect. I will be looking for more projects on this site.

My gal loved the way this bookshelf turned out. It was my first time building it and if/when I'm commissioned to build another one, I'll likely use wainscotting for the back instead of knotty pine which is 3/4" thick. just made the back a little bulky for my taste. I also would've taken the time to put the pocket holes where the shelves were going to be so I didn't have the different tint of stain on the plugs. Would've been an easy thing to do, but I wasn't thinking ahead at that moment, I guess.

Great plan, Ana. Thanks for the resource! 

This one I can’t take complete credit for, the base shelving unit was left behind in our basement & was just beyond belief disgusting. I cleaned it up stripped it apart, stained it & put new hardware on it. The house is older & whoever “modernized” just didn’t do a spectacular job & place the cupboards in an odd way instead of utilizing the space properly. Anyway as I’ve mentioned in other projects, this is another odd corner, actually it’s not so odd because it’s supposed to be where the the fridge goes according to our landlord but it’s sized for a really small fridge & our big monster double door twice the size of this cubby, it is now in the mudroom which isn’t too inconvenient because it’s right off the kitchen & because we shut the vents in there to keep the heating cost lower in the winter the fridge doesn’t have to work too hard to keep cold. Anyway I wanted to utilize this space & found that the shelf fit perfect next to the garbage can that was there so I just made a top to fit the space & then we now have a microwave stand/coffee prep area.

My first DIY project. I went a little different and built the table top out of sassafras lumber that I bought from a local sawyer. The plans were foolproof. The only tricky part about this project is the finish. I stained the table with Minwax Dark walnut and 4 coats of polyurethane (2 parts poly to 1 part mineral spirits) to get the finish I wanted. Of course I spent the most time sanding this table. It turned out wonderfully and my wife is one happy camper!

Loved the design of the coffee table and needed something in my living room to make it feel a little less empty. As I was building the table I realized that the bottom shelf was roughly the size of a flag that I've built in the past and decided to add one to it to bring a little patriotism to my living room. I used a torch to burn the flag onto the wood. Love the way it turned out!

This was my first time building something big :) and im sooo happy with the results. Had been looking for a sofa table/console for so long but couldn't decide on what I wanted , when I saw this on the first page I fell in love. It was fairly easy to build. Took me 2 days, one day sanding, cutting, staining it and the next putting it together. I love how it turned out.

I didnt make the side 'X' bc I want to do something different than the original plan, just trying to figure it out what exactly.

Oh! And I still need to add the decorative hardware, I have it, just need to remember to do it.

Thank you so much for the plans.

That was fun. Got a new dog, built her this for double duty. A crate and a table. The finishing was the lengthy part, by a LONG shot. Can't wait to start a new plan.

This table was custom made for a good friend and his family. He wanted a trestle style with bench seats for his kids and able to have room to sit at the ends as well. In addition, he wanted breadboard table top. Engineering wise, thats a tall order. So I made the table top solid by using biscuits to secure the timber and since the breadboards could not be supported by the trestle legs I used 5/8" dowel rods, 6" long, 2 per board. I used a 2x4 and scrap plywood to make a dowel jig. I also reinforced them with 3" pocket screws on the bottom.

The next challenge was bringing the legs in enough to make room for end seating while still allowing room for the benches. I used 2x6s on the top and bottom of the trestles and secured them flush to the edge to allow for leg room at the ends.

 I used 1" dowels to secure the 4x4 runner using a split/wedge technique. The benches are pretty strait forward and I also used biscuits to make solid tops.

To save money and to have a rustic look, I used douglas fur framing lumber which required many hours of scraping and sanding to make the top level and splitter free. Additionally, I used 5 layers of polyurethane to withstand the wear and tear of a young families daily use. Thankfully they fell in love with the table as much as I did!

We turned a formal living into a bedroom so we needed a door to close off the kitchen/nook beyond. Since we were on a tight budget, we knew we could not afford the barn door hardware, so we found the next best thing:

Stanley Trolley Box Track (from Lowe's). http://tinyurl.com/2z6wpn Yes, it's ugly looking, but we painted it black and modified how it was used. We got the 6' track with the box track hangers without apron. We bought the mount bracket, but that was a mistake. The door could not pass the mount on the right side and we ended up just attaching the track to the wall without the mount on that side (pic of door open shows both mounts before we were able to close the door and before we removed the mount on the right side). Had we known, both sides would have been attached to the wall without the mount. But, we went ahead and left the mount on the left side as we didn't think it hurt the look too much.

The door: We made another mistake. We meant to buy 1x tongue and groove wood (3/4" thick) to make our door and we somehow got 8' lengths of tongue and groove paneling 1/4" thick (OOPS): http://tinyurl.com/7ea6b3r It looks good, but it's ultra light weight (stain first, then put it together). We used a flat piece of aluminum to hold it together (also painted black - along with painted screws). Due to our mistake in depth, our screws were too long so we located a 2x4 directly behind the aluminum strip on the top and the bottom of the door for stability. It helped a lot. The location of the aluminum strip at the top is strategic because the 2x4 behind it is also what holds the box track hangers that roll on the track above. We put them a few inches in on each side from the edge of the door, drilled a hole vertical through the 2x4 (a little off center so the door wouldn't rub the track) where longer bolts were used to go all the way through the 2x4 and hold the door onto the track while being hidden behind the door. I also had to get smaller screws for my door handle to go on since the door was only 1/4" thick. But, it all worked out.

The backside: Due to the fact the door is so light, we added felt to the 2x4 at the bottom so it wouldn't damage the trim.

This was my second wood project and I am really happy with how it turned out. I basically followed the plans but made mine alot bigger. It measures roughly 6' long, 33" tall, and 20" wide. I wanted to let people know how I made the center door because the video used alot of tools and skills that I do not have.
I made the doors out of 4" and 2" select pine with PH's on the back. I then cut a 5/16" groove in the center on the outside of the stiles. About 7/8-15/16 of the way up the door I installed a 1/4" wooden dowel. On the cabinet frame I installed another wooden dowel that the door dowel rests on when closed, this is also the dowel that rides in the groove that was cut on the door.
The other difficult part (for Me) was the cut out design on the bottom of the frame. I did this by using a big bowl for the center and a really thin strip of wood. Once I cut out one side I just flipped the cut piece over and traced it to the other side.
I finished the top off with 3 coats Minwax Dark Mahoganey and 3 coats of Minwax Polycrylic.

40 inch tall weathered Gray table