Community Brag Posts

I have always been interested in some kind of projects and just to see what I can do with my hands. I am a father of 3 and hardly have the time to sit down must less pull off a huge project but I set aside some time and worked on this late at night after the kiddos went to bed. I came across this site when my wife was on pintrest one night and have been hooked ever since. I was at work one day and saw all these different projects that I wanted to do and that's when I ran across this bed and I could not wait to start working on it. I called my wife and sent pictures of the plans and said meet me at Lowes we got a project to work on lol. I had a blast working on this and yes I did run into a few problems here and there but overall it came out great. When I went in I originally was going to follow plans to a T but decided that I would make changes here and there as I went. Due to height contstrictions in my son's room I lowered the overall height by two inches which worked out perfect. I did build the steps but I also made the back where it would come apart for east movement. I only used actual pine boards on the steps and the rest is 3/4" MDF board. I ripped everything on a table saw to exact width and length and drilled all my holes with a Kreg Jig. Alot of people are afraid to use MDF but believe me I could shake that bed as hard as I can and it doesn't even budge one bit. It is heavy duty built for a monkey child like I have. The project overall took around 30 hours from start to finish. My only suggestion would be to paint every step of the way instead of waiting to paint until the end like I did. If you have any questions about the build feel free to ask and I will help out the best I can. Thanks Ana for the plans and thanks to atouchofarkansas for the original inspiration for you guys have gave my son years worth of enjoyment. Can't wait for the next project to start.

Modified the plans to add a shelf for DVD player and gaming consoles. 

For Christmas gifts this year, I built several different jewelry boxes from the Easy Jewelry Box plan. The center one is a variation of the plan, made taller and narrower (that one was for Mom). The drawers are all lined with embossed felt and the 2-drawer boxes have adjustable drawer dividers. These all have sticky-back felt on box and drawer bottoms. The tower style box has added trim. Each one was an afternoon build. These were super fun to build and were a huge hit with Mom and my friends!

As a newly blended family of seven  people, we needed a dining room table that would accomodate our family comfortably.  With nothing suitable available locally and our joint interest in homemade projects, we searched for a plan we could work with.  We were thrilled when we found this plan, which we customized to the dimensions of our dining room. We adjusted the length to 9' and the width to 33" and went with a plank and breadboard end top.  We used a Tudor colour Minwax polyshade stain with a satin finish for the top.  To achieve the worn look of the pedestals we used a torch to burn the wood, primed it with a primer sealer, painted it with furniture andcabinet paint (Armadillo) for durability, then scuffed/sanded the desired areas with a durable 60 grit sandpaper.  Making the table ourselves allowed us to use a colour scheme which matched the chairs we had purchased.  We will add, it was more time consuming than anticipated, but well worth it!  We LOVE our new table!! 

I'd been looking for a plank-style farmhouse table for quite some time. Couldn't find what I wanted to buy anywhere (and too cheap to spend the money even if I did), so decided to make my own table. Made up my own design for the table top, and then went looking for the right legs. I liked the pedestals on Ana's design a lot, but thought 3 was too many for my project. Looking at some of the other tables that had been done with only two, I decided I didn't love the high placement of the spanning bar when done with only 2 legs. So, I moved it down to the bottom of the legs instead, and added a couple of decorative knobs to make up for the lost visual interest to the pedestal columns. I'm not a particularly physically strong woman, but I was was able to do this entire build single-handedly, with very little previous experience assembling furniture (lots of diy experience doing other kinds of home improvement projects though). Only needed a second set of hands when finally lifting the top onto the legs at the end. Fun project overall.

Final table size is 8' X 33.5". Seats 8 comfortably; can fit 10 when needed.

I completed this project on a day off from school. It took about 8 total hours from start to finish. I purchaced 1x8's and cut them to size to minimize the looking through piles of lumber for stright boards. My first project, and im looking forward to the next.

Saw Ana's plan on Pinterest for the Rustic X Coffee Table and wanted it in my own home!

With a desire to decorate a mantel for the holidays, my husband and I decided to build a fireplace mantel and surround. This was our first building project.

Inspired by the faux mantel at Blue Roof Cabin blog and with the drawn up plans from Ana White, this mantel was fairly easy to build.

I (we) are very happy with the results. Since the plans were adapted to fit around our existing fireplace, the completed dimensions are 66 1/2 inches high x 74 3/4 wide. Total cost came to $130.81

For more details about the building process, please check out the tutorial.

Thank you.

Julie

Used square laundry baskets instead of regular rectangular baskets. The square ones aren't as deep but are a bit taller so I had to modify the plans. I added a backsplash and some wooden tags to the baskets to designate them for certain colors. I also added some decorative trim and finished the bottom in a gray stain and used white chalk paint for the top.

Larger than on-line plans but it got me started. The top is made of oak skids glued together for 1-5/8" thickness.

We made this table following the Rustic Console Table plans. We bought all the supplies at our local lumber yard so the cost was about $60 for the project. This plan turned out so great that we even made the matching side table:) It is sturdy, useful and plain and simple great for the space! This is a fun one to make!!

Built this around Thanksgiving before I got a miter saw so took a little extra time with circular saw but worked just fine. 

Modified the plans only slightly to include 3 seats for all our kids. On one side I put a vertical dowel rod that we can place sand weights over to counter balance the weight when all three are on it. I did use pressure treated pine for the parts that are resting on the ground so that it will last a little longer since it will usually sit in the grass. 

Kids love it!

This was a fun project. It took nearly 3 months to complete. Nights, weekends and a few finish redo's :). 

Rural Bus Shelter with 3/12 shed roof, designed to keep your kids out of the elements as they wait for the bus. Shown with log siding and 2x trim. Can be constructed on a slab on grade or remain portable with pressure treated runners and wood floor as shown.

Upgrade further with electricity and insulation for those really cold and dark climates (ie. Washington, Oregon, Alaska, B.C.).

I will make the plans for this shelter freely available to all that are interested.

I based this build on the Triple Pedestal Farmhouse Table found on this site.  I fell in love with the table and I just had to build one!

This table is only 72" long, so I ended up removing the third pedestal.  I also removed the decorative apron that is pictured in the original plan.  I also added a picture frame border using 2x4's with 45 degree angles on the corners. I think I like how this look turned out! I kept the legs the same size as the original plan called for.

This entire build took me about a day and the staining process another 2-3 days. I stained the table top using Varathane's American Walnut stain and I painted the base using an off-white milk paint. But before painting the base, I stained the corners with the same American Walnut stain so that when I was ready to add the distressed look, I could simply just sand the paint until the stain appeared through the white.

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