Community Brag Posts

I built this nightstand several months ago, so I honestly don't remember my time or money investment all that well. It was a fun, easy project though. As usual the biggest time investment was in the finish work.

We are a military family who ended up with a very small house on our most recent move. We needed something that was functional for storage but nice enough to fit with our decor without looking too industrial, Ana White's General Store Cubbies to the rescue! We modified the plan to make it a 3x9. I finished it with Behr's lap pool blue and Glidden's delicious apple (which I plan to use for my next project as well) and then glazed with minwax jacobean stain mixed with behr glazing mix. The front tags are from Michael's crafts store in the scrapbooking section and in instead of putting tags on each cubby I added some stick-on tags with positive words on them. I couldn't be happier with how it turned out! Thanks Ana!

My version of the Farmhouse Storage Bed that I converted to a King Size Bed with modified dawers. Still working on the plans and materials list, but when completed I will update my descrption. 

My oldest daughter was beyond needing a "big girl bed" - the poor thing couldn't "fit" in her toddler bed, and had to sleep curled up! So I had her help me pick out a bed, and she ended up asking for the Lydia bed (and she mimed that she wanted a trundle, since she didn't know what it was called!). The bed itself was a quick build, but then I lost steam when it came to doing the trundle. It came along a few weeks after the bed was in her room, but, as you can see, I still haven't painted it... or added a bed to it.... Then she wanted a bed for all of her Sonic dolls (I think she's kinda transitioning from being a tom-boy to being a girly-girl... she picked out everything in her room!)... So I built her a "matching" bed based on the farmhouse doll bed plans. Side note - I haven't cleaned her room in a while, so ignore the fact that the floor needs swept!

Here is an end table I recently built for our living room. I modified the Rhyan End Table plans to include a routered top and some modification to the drawer fronts.

We have a very big dining room in which we tought none of the store-bought tables would look good in. We needed a square table!

We got inpired by this beautiful post on Ana White (http://ana-white.com/2011/05/farmhouse-tablesquared) and soon after that starting to go look for what sizes of wood we can get. We live in an apartment, with no access to super big machinery so we needed to work with what wood stores offered us. We adapted the plan to our desire. Total cost was lower that 300 Euros, including screws, glue and stain. We are THRILLED!! :)

Love getting to watch my daughter play with stuff that i made her.

Time: About 15 hours
$: 150 (wood, stain, sand paper)
Stain: Minwax Red Mahogany (2 coats)
Finish: Satin Polyurethane (1 coat, light sand, another coat)

We had to change a few of the measurements just slightly, but overall the directions were awesome!

The only change that we made was to the "footboard", instead of 2x2's and a 2x4, we changed it to one 4x4. We added moulding at the base of the feet and at the top of the footboard we added a routed headplate. It gave it a real "finished" look.

Sorry for the "spotty" pictures...dang camera!

We wanted to build our own coffee table with a mosaic tile top, so we searched for plans that would give us a good, sturdy base to work with. The Tryde coffee table base with this design was simple, yet contemporary when paired with our tile table top. We tweaked the measurements slightly so that a 24"x48" piece of plywood could fit on top. Couldn't be happier with the result!

I modified the width of the shelves and as you can see from the variable height of my garage one side was made higher.  

I used some scrap wook so I was able to cut expenses by about 25 dollars.  The total cost was 50 dollars not including the nails.  Although time is money.  It took me one day to draw up the modified design, get prices and get the wood and then another day to put it together.  With what I saved by doing it myself I could have made more working and buying a premade unit.  However with this said, it would not be my personal accomplishment and modified to my unique needs.  Besides, I had fun doing it.  

Thanks for your info.  It was very clear and simple.  Debbie

No plan was used but I did use many techniques that I learned from this site.  I took features from several different plans.  I love how it turned out.  

I decided to start with the most simple design I could for my first build. I've always wanted some big, ginormous bookcases and these seemed to fit the bill. I was surprised with how difficult it was to work with the thick 2x12 boards, but all in all I'm really happy with the results. I did modify the dimensions to make them not as wide, making the width of the shelves only 31".

I had to make some adjustments to the size, because our new mattress is 180 x 190cm, and I had a couple of problems with the plan, it was probably me rather than the plan, but nothing that I couldn't overcome. The bed is pino (pine) purely because I couldn't get any other dry timber in Colombia, unless I won the lottery. 

The boards on the headboard panel, I pocket holed (using ordinary wood screws) as well as glued, to ensure they will not part in the future, and I used lag bolts to attach the base to the footboard.

The bed is a few inches taller than the plan, purely because my Wife wanted one of our dogs to be able to continue sleeping under the bed!

Unfortunately due to the small size of the room, the photos do not show the bed that well. The full build is on my Blog.

Now to make the night stands! 

We used MDF, drop-leaf lockable hinges for the leaves, and piano hinges. I wouldn't recommend MDF because it wasn't strong enough for the screws and we ended up having to add bits of plywood to reinforce the areas for the hinges. We also put pegboard on the back to avoid things popping out the other end, and I'm planning on getting some hooks to hang crafty things like scissors and glue guns.

Despite the modifications we had to make, I love my little sewing table! It fits perfectly under our dining room table and but has tons of workspace when it's folded out. Perfect for a small, cramped house! The finished project isn't quite as bright yellow as the flash made it seem, but it is still bright and happy!

It was time that my son finally got a real bed. Additionally, he needed a desk as well. This is why I chose the Chelsea bunk system plans. I had to make some modifications that you can see in the pictures. The first modification was taken from GROOVYMOM2000, the chalkboards. I don't have any chalk at the moment so it looks like black paint from the picture but its the spray on chalkboard stuff. The subsequent modifications were made for stabilization. I added supports to the desk before I started finishing the wood with stain and polyurethane because it was WAY too unstable. I thought that the bookcase was going to be okay but once the bed was on top it had more wobble than I felt comfortable with. This is why I added the 45 degree 2x2s to the bookcase corners. I will have to remove them and add some better looking ones in the future but they REALLY made a difference; the bed is rock solid now. The ladder was thrown together last minute with a rather advantageous plan that didn't work out. I tried to incorporate hangers into the cut so it could be removed easily but my jigsaw blade was too dull and ripped the wood to pieces. At this point I just slapped the pieces together and screwed it into the side of the bed. He might have to go a couple months before I decide to build a new one the right way. This honestly turned out to be a lot bigger project than I planned at first. Building the bed was fairly quick and easy but sanding, conditioning, staining, and protecting the wood took almost a week. I am pleased with the outcome but painting the bed would have made a significant time difference. If you do go with stain then let me suggest you stain the guardrails before assembly.