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This is my first big woodworking project. That being said, there were a lot of mistakes that were made. In the pictures you can see the beginning stages when I was making the base cuts and assembling the table top. The picture with the dark top and natural legs was the beginning of one mistake. I bought gel stain because it was the color I liked but I had no idea how to use it correctly. Because of this I left the stain on and it was waaayyyyy too dark. I had to sand down the entire top and redo it. After fixing that I correctly stained the base, extensions, and bench. The extensions I made are not in the photos because I forgot to make the cuts to slide them in. I'm supposed to do that this weekend... After staining I polyurethaned the base, bench, and extensions to give them a nice shine. The table top I finished with Liquid Glass two part epoxy. That gave the top a super hard surface that shines and makes the normally soft pine top, rock hard. I figured this way when my daughters do homework on it they wouldn't leave their writing indented in my nice, new table. I hope you guys like it and I plan to do many more projects and post my results here. Thanks for taking the time to check this out.

With another baby on the way in a few months, we decided to move our 2+ year old daughter across the hall into her first big girl room. I built big sister the Kendal Extra Wide Dresser, Traditional Wood Toddler Bed, Letter A Shelf and a Dollhouse Bookcase and matched the colors with her new comforter, lamps and princess canopy tent from the Land of Nod outlet.

This project was actually an afterthought. I built the other three projects, painted the room, installed all the accessories, and then we discovered that there was nowhere to put her books. Because I had been spending so much time building, after reading the plans, I really expected this bookshelf project to go smoothly with my Kreg Jig. However, different aspects of this project took some extra time. For instance, joining the A-frame of the roof took some trial and error with pocket holes, nails, screws and a lot of wood filler. Also, for the side windows and doors, cutting straight lines with the jigsaw, cutting, building and joining the 1 x 2 trim pieces, joining the trim pieces to the bookshelf, and then painting the trim took a lot of time and trial and error (again, thank goodness for wood filler). Notwithstanding, at the end of the day, the shelf is great, our daughter loves it, and it really completes the room.  

This is my first ever wood project. I helped my dad frame his basement a couple years ago and figured that a hand built table would be a nice piece of furniture to have as my wife and I begin to start a family. I've been gathering tools for a few months to begin making furniture and I chose to start with this piece.

I had read that a few people found that the 2x6's on the table top caught crumbs so I picked up a cheap, used table saw and squared off the edges so that the table top would be more consistently flat.

For the legs, I wanted to use 4x4 untreated posts but could not find them so I used the table saw to cut down the 2x4's so that, when screwed together, they formed 3x3 legs. I then used a 0.25 inch round router bit to sound off all the edges on both the legs and all exposed edges around the outside of the table.

I finished with two coats of early american stain and in between applied a distressing technique I picked up from one other blog post.

I am 95% happy with how the table has turned out. Structurally is it very sound. If I was to do it over I would have screwed the entire tabletop in with pocket hole screws to eliminate holes on the surface.

Used the Farmhouse Style bed plan and stacked them, two headboards for the bottom bed, two footboards for the top bunk bed

Was very simple and the plans we very well laid out!

How I Spent My Spring Break Well, it was a long week but I finally finished. I made 2 complete sets of loft beds for my oldest son and my daughter. The plans were great and easy to follow. A few notes; the actual width of a 1 x 8 is 7.25 inches (not 7.5) and a 1 x 12 is actually 11.25 inches (not 11.5). I noticed this when constructing the legs and putting the optional shelf supports on the large bookcase. It's not a huge deal, it's only a quarter of an inch. Also, if you are going to assemble and paint in the room, paint the interior of the bed area BEFORE attaching the slats. That added a lot of extra painting time for me. I made a few modifications as well. For the desk, my wife suggested that the width of a 1 x12 was a bit narrow, so I cut a 1 x 6 and biscuit joined it to the desk front. I cut a 22.5 degree angle on the end that meets up with the small bookcase that is attached to the desk. The straight edge lines up with the face of the other small bookcase, like a puzzle piece. I then covered the desk top with a piece of plexiglass to make the surface smoother and to hold picture (slide under the plexiglass). In addition, I bought an LED light system (about $40 from IKEA) and installed under the 2 top shelves of the large bookcase. Really cool effect and the kids love it! Overall, I am very happy with the project results. Looks great, very solid and lumber on cost about $400 for 2 complete sets. Just need to put in some sweat...

I was a bit over my head with this one but I am so far very happy with the project. It is not quite finished. The marble was installed last week and we are awating the plumber to come back to hook up the sinks. I will install the second slatted shelf once the plumbing is in. Will post finished pictures soon. The mirror is made from 6x6 posts from the lumber yard. We had a friend cut them to size using a band saw. We made the mirror frame based on a picture I found on Houzz.com. The mirror glass was something I picked up off of craigslist for next to nothing and removed from the original frame. It is HEAVY (~200lbs) and attached to the wall with metal brackets. We purchased the sinks/faucets on ebay. 

We added Ana's truss beam base to an already-existing table top that we had DIY'd years ago (our very first project!). We made the benches per her plans as well and now we all just love it! The whole thing is big, sturdy and beautiful. The only thing we didn't do were those two pretty beams that come down in the center - my hubby liked how simple it looked without it :) Loved this project! (And love how my three kids crawl all over it! Memories!)

This was my first time using my jigsaw. Easiest project ever, and I love the result!

Made whith Pine, Changing Table fitting with Kendal wide dresser.

Fancy Farmhouse Headboard with Modified Trim. There was a lot of trial and error as this was my first ever project, but now I'm hooked! We only needed a headboard to attach to our King platform frame. 

The Big Kid and her friend were standing behind me when I pulled up Ana's birdhouse kit plans and they begged to build one, too. Initially, I wasn't wanting them to use my nail gun, so I predrilled the holes for all the brad nails. Details are on my blog.

I was able to get three birdhouses from two 6' fence pickets (had to make one about a half inch smaller all around, but it's barely noticeable!)

Thanks, Ana!

Since I am a very visual person when it comes to drawings and 2D/3D renderings, I have included pictures of the cut list shown on the boards you will need to use.  I hope this helps some people!  Keep in mind, if you use side mount drawer slides like I did, you need 3 extra 15.75" pieces for the slides to mount to.  I just used extra 1x3 boards I had hanging around.

We built this dresser plan to be used as a dresser / change table combo.  The guy at the home improvement store said to use oil based polyurethane so that it was more resistant to change table spills and traffic/wear over the years.  The oil based poly also added a nice amber color to the stained wood which I really liked.

This is the most complicated project I've made so far (because I've never made a plan with drawers), but after a couple tables and a desk from Ana's site (and referencing Shanty-2-chic also) I was confident that it would turn out well.

Change from the original plans --> We used 16in ball bearing "soft close" side-mount drawer slides instead of the euro style bottom corner mount ones mentioned in the plans. This requires adding the supports shaded in blue on the plans near step #7 pictures.  Getting the exact spacing width for those slides was a bit tricky and the drawer boxes had to be within 1/16" for them to work, so if you want simple you might want to stick to the euro style ones.  They allow for more "play" in the operation. 

Tip for attaching drawer faces:  For one thing, make the attahcment of the top and back of the dresser the LAST two steps you do on the whole project since it makes installing drawer slides and drawer faces a breeze.  That said, when it cam time for attached the front of the drawers I used 1/8" tile spacers all around the sides to make sure that gap was uniform and correct (see pic #4).  It was the simplest way I thought about of going about it.  Mounting the drawer boxes to the slides needed to be done before attaching the face boards for me.  And instead of nailing the faces on from the front and then screwing from behind; I put glue on the drawer box, put the face board in place using the tile spacers, and then added screws from the inside of the frame side.  It was a breeze. 

As the plans stated, I attached the top with PH screws through the side panels and six countersunk screws in the 2x2s along the width of the top using 2" screws.  It would have been a lot simpler to install the countersunk ones if I had a right angle drill or short handles screw driver, but I did not, so I made a normal one work.

If you have any more specific questions about my version of this project please let me know.  I was hoping to get to share more than 5 pictures, but that seems to be all the posts let you put up so I tried to included the most helpful ones.

I used the plans for the outdoor sofa and just changed the measurements to fit the tailgate back. 

My first attempt at this type of project. We needed a good place to store the pool towels. My wife asked me where I bought it from!