Community Brag Posts

I made these with your plans first time I ever made anything. Your plans are amazing.

We needed a big sturdy table for 8-12 persons for our big dinning room but didn't want to pay 3000$ for it. Then i found Ana-white's site and thought "why not!". It's my first project, i started whit the bench and then made the table. All buy myself, my husby doesn't even know how to use a saw. He help me carry it inside thought ;) The plans were realy easy to follow. Somebody stop me, i'm refurnishing my hole house, i can't stop! In 2 months i'v made 2 dinning tables, 2 patio tables, 1 coffe table, 5 benches. So if i can do it, you can too!

I made this Ice Chest Cart for my son’s schools silent auction. It features a spigot for drainage, bottle opener, hook for a bar towel and I also set it on castors so it can be easily moved.

This was my first attempt after finding the site. I was so happy with the ease of the plans and the way it turned out i made the dining table

This was my first furniture project, and I modified these plans slightly to get 2 drawers, as well as a smaller depth of the desk.  I took this photo before I added drawer pulls, but I love how it turned out!

This dollhouse was super easy to make! Harper (the doll) wanted an open concept living/kitchen, and that is the first floor. Second floor are the bedroom and bathroom. Top floor is the closet. The roof is made from 3.5" slats of luan glued together and painted with black sanded paint. Notice the baseboards and crown molding? The window boxes are really cute, too! I still owe my granddaughter a garage and patio with pergola, and kitchen appliances and chairs, but that will wait until summer when she can help craft/build them. 

Harper's bed is modeled after the farmhouse bed plans available on this site, but I used smaller scrap lumber. I wanted milk paint but was unwilling to pay the high price, so I bought a sample jar of antique ivory paint and watered it down. It turned out great!

Wanted to make a loft bed for my 4-year-old son's room that could accommodate a toddler bed beneath it for when my 1-year-old daughter eventually starts sleeping on her own. I was torn between the Chelsea and Cabin bed plans, but eventually settled on the Chelsea because I liked the look of the headboard better.

I looked through all the brag posts to get modification ideas. I ended up mostly stealing ideas from "chadwickstafin", and like him took the great idea from "groovymom2000" to use chalkboard paint (though I only used it to paint the side of the desk end, since I knew the bookshelf end would be mostly blocked by a ladder). I decided to skip the decorative feet and just extend my 2x2s to the floor for extra strength, a mod that most people appear to be doing with this plan. I saw some people using 2x3s in place of 2x2s for added strength, but I can confirm that 2x2s are plenty strong enough on their own (2x2s are stronger than people give them credit for, and there's 8 of them here to distribute the load).

Like chadwickstafin, I cut my headboard a little differently, and I used short lengths of scrap 2x2s cut at 45-degrees to brace the top and bottom corners of both end units. There is no wiggle to the bed at all, it's stabilized so well. I also added a middle support to the short rail, just for a little extra safety, and secured the inside ends of the railings to the headboard/footer with pocket screws. I skipped the filler pieces for the railing, and just did a little extra sanding to make sure all exposed corners were smooth and splinter-free. I made the opening to the bed a bit wider than the plans, 15" instead of 13". I used 2x3s for the ladder, which gave me the sturdiness I wanted without the full bulk of using 2x4s, which looked especially chunky next to a loft unit made with mostly 1x boards. I played with some different angles, but eventually went with a 15-degree ladder. There were some leftover plastic handles sitting in my garage (originally from an outdoor playset ladder before I replaced it with a climbing wall), so I added those near the top of the ladder for some extra safety. I put some color-changing strip lighting under the bed, so there would be plenty of light for the desk and bookshelves (my little guy loves to just plop down on the ground beneath his bed and read).

I spaced the 1x3 slats about 3.5" apart (used scrap 2x4 blocks as spacers). Because my wife or I will lay in bed and read to our son at night, I easily added a couple 2x2 support rails under the 1x3 slats for extra mattress support. I'm a big dude at 6'3 and 250 lbs, and the slats alone WERE strong enough to hold me when I did a test, but they bowed just enough in the center (unnoticeable to me up on the mattress, but I had my wife watching the slats for me below) that I felt I should add a bit more support. Now there's no bowing at all.

I also used Ana's Top Bunk Organizer plans to give my son a little extra storage up top (and a place to set a glass of water during the night), and painted it to match the bed's color scheme. Everything was sanded, painted, sanded again, repainted, and then given a couple coats of polycrylic (the painting process took longer than the cutting & assembly!).

Cost-wise I was extraordinarily lucky. We have a Habitat For Humanity ReStore near us, so I was able to get my paints and a 3x6 sheet of MDF for $15 total. I also had some rebate cards from Menards (regional hardware store, similar to Lowes or Home Depot), plus happened to go there on a week when pine wood was on sale, so I got all my lumber for less than $60.

I could not be happier with the end results, and my son absolutely loves his new bed.

We are in desperate need of toy storage in our playroom. We are planning to build several more of these bulk bins.

Hello everyone! I built the Logan entertainment center for our apartment and it is amazing! I used Ana's plans with a few modifications. This was the first projected I finished and while it's not perfect, I love it and I learned a lot in the process. Because I was learning to build as I went, it might have taken me longer than someone who has more experience. I built this project over several months and it took a long time, but it was totally worth it. Check out more details about my experience over at my blog. 

I was looking for a plan for a 5 board bench so naturally I came to your site. I made your basic design but made it a little bit smaller in all dimensions and I put a half inch split down the middle of the top. I built it out of pine and painted it flat black. I gave the legs and underneath 3 coats of satin polyurethane and the top and sides received 5.

You can follow the build on my blog at :
http://funwithwoodworkingtoo.blogspot.com/2013/09/project-how-to-build-…

You can also watch a video of the build on my YouTube page at:
http://youtu.be/1_hz2n7v9ss

Thanks for the free plans!

Great little project. Finished just in time for Thanksgiving.

Andy

I tackled the Farmhouse Table over a long weekend while my boyfriend was away - he was surprised needless to say!
I have not attempted any woodwork projects since grade 8, but this was alot of fun - I did not find it very difficult and loove using power tools :)
I made the matching bench, however I guess I did not stir the bottom of the can well enough and my bench is now red :/ soo I am going to either stain it dark or paint it white and use it as a mudroom seat!

*I also made mine shorter - 7ft long to fit in our dining room and adjusted the bench to fit.