Community Brag Posts

These plans were the perfect little end tables for my "sitting area" in my kitchen. I went out and found scraps from my pile in the shed and only had to buy one 1x3! With my kids I rarely have time to do a project in one day. I measure one day, cut and sand another, and then build another. These babies sat unfinished by my couch for a couple of months, and I FINALLY finished them! Yea! I love them! It is my first attempt at painting furniture and distressing, it's not perfect, but I am happy to have a little more confidence! I love the tables! Thanks Ana!

I was inspired to build an airplane shelf for my son based on the plane old shelf design, and I've always liked WW2 era p-51 Mustangs. So I thought I'd give it a shot. I built this design out of mostly 3/4 plywood scrap. I glued 3 pieces together for the fuselage and routed out the wings for a rounded look. I then thought it would be cool to add some LED lights. That got me thinking, if I added enough lights underneath the wings he could use it to read books at night. There are 12 lights underneath and it seems to be very bright. The prop spins thanks to a few washers and a long screw. Most of my cost was tied up in LED lights since I used spare parts and scrap wood. It took me at least 10 hours to build as I had never tried to build something like this and experimented along the way.

I learned from other project fails to sand down the boards as I go. So my hubby cut the lumber and handed each board to me and I sanded down the boards with 120 grit sand paper followed by a finishing sanding block. Luckily the lumber that we purchased was not super rough so I hand sanded everything down. Once each board was mostly sanded down we put it all together.

Since my hubby countersunk the screws I applied standard wood filler and sanded it once it was dry (about 2 hrs later). I then applied wood conditioner and about 30 minutes later, followed by 1 coat of stain and 1 coat of polyurethane finish. Once the polyurethane was dry I sanded it down one more time with the fine sanding block so it was perfectly smooth.

I must confess: this was the second time I built a coffee table from this plan. The first time I built it I did a HORRIBLE job with the sanding & staining. When my husband and I first built from this plan it took us about 8 hours to build it. The second time it took us 3 hours.

Built two jumbo sized dressers 72 by 36 3/4 by 24 3/4. Painting is still pending. One can see playlist here

Rasik

This tower plan was perfect for re-using some already stained 1x12’s I had from another project. It fills up that little square of unused space at the top of the stairs, and gives us extra storage for towels and TP for the 3 bathrooms in our house. I substituted 1x2 and ¼” plywood for the door and used some 1x2 and 1x3 to attach and build it in. This project has been up for a couple of months now, and has come in handy. This was my first attempt at doing something as a ‘built-in,’ and it gave me confidence that we could do our next big project (the pantry) as a built-in. Since the side and shelf boards were already stained, once it was assembled the finishing was easy- all I had to do was stain the trim boards to match, and paint the door and the inside.
Thanks for this great plan, Ana! I’m planning to build several more of these, for my sewing room.

Plan for this table was easy to follow. Loving me new table.

Based on a combination of storage bed plans on this site and bit of imagination, we built this wonderful corner bed for our daughter. It took some time to get the measurements right (we had to convert everything to the metric system since we live in Europe) but it turned out great.

Although the bed is in the corner right now, we made the cubby holes on the side facing the wall anyway, just in case we want to move it to the middle of the room at a later date. For now, we just placed the corner board in front of those.

Thanks everybody for the wonderful plans!

This was our first project from Ana-White. I had a coffee table which I loved, but I inherited it from a dumpster years ago (great find!) and time finally caught up to it. I decided this time around I didn't want to spend over $300 on a "rustic" coffee table that everyone has. So my boyfriend and I decided if we were going to have a table that others have, it might as well be unique in the sense that we made it!

We split the time in about a 3 week period (we both work full-time so time in our house is at a minimum). We bought the wood, cut it, and used a Kreg Jig to start putting it all together. We had some trouble with perfecting the X's (as you'll see) as our saw didn't quite hit the angle. But we managed to get it done.

The most time consuming part was sanding, sanding, and sanding some more. We went with the oxidization finish which was kind of a pain... we probably will never do that again. The outcome wasn't all that much better than regular stain. Then we used poly on the top instead of wax so it would be more durable.

My take on this bed. My wife said she wanted me to build her a bed after I built the toddler helper tower for my daughter, also from this amazing site. And when your wife asks you to build her a bed, you build her a bed. It was a fun project aside from the shim work. It was very tedious but well worth it in the end. I made a few changes but not many and discovered a few tips along the way that might help someone else. In the pictures you can see a more detailed picture of how I layed the shims out. Staining before you attach the shims is a must. And I decided to stain the shims themselves before I attached them as well. I did that because I wanted a more "weathered" look to them and didn't want them all one uniform color. They each have one coat of stain. Just applied a little thicker to some. 

As for the rest of the frame it has two coats of Minwax polyshades in Satin espresso. I'm curious to see how it holds up but so far I love the way it looks. So when I bought my 4x4's they had rounded corners. In retrospect I should have not made everything on the head and foot boards flush but instead pushed it back 1/4" or so that way theres not a gap where the rounded part meets the panel trim. 

Back to the shims, after testing and debating with myself, I decided that attaching them with hot glue worked best for me. Wood glue curled the edges causing them not to sit flush. Nails would be too much of a pain as every hole would need to be filled. Hot glue seemed to do the trick and they feel solid. OK enough for me. Thanks Ana for the plans. 

Each grandchild gets a bed made by Grandpa. Our granddaughter wanted a "cow bed." It has a fence to keep her tucked in, a happy cow staring at her, a cow jumping over the moon, drawers that are three feet deep, and more black spots than I could have imagined when I started painting. By the end I was so delirious that one of the spots on the back side is the USS Enterprise!

I loved the idea of the storage sofa! Such an easy build and I tweaked the plans to fit my needs... I used 5" high density foam, I lengthened the sofa to 84" (so I wouldn't have any wasted foam and also so my extremely tall son could stretch out on it without his feet hanging off the edge), I used a 2x8 for the box, and used 1/2" plywood for the seat because 1/4" ply was too flexible. I also made the seat with a zippered cover to encase the foam, batting, and plywood. This way, I can easily remove it to wash it. It's my favorite place to sit while I'm working!

I loved the tall corner cabinet but hate to have my television out in view all of the time so I used the plans and made an additional door opening for the tv. I adore it and now have so much space I chat wait to tackle many more projects!

Perfect little playhouse my husband built for our girls.   It took about a week to build by himself, but worth every minute.   He did a wonderful job.   Such a good daddy!