Community Brag Posts

added a shelf for a desk lamp

Ideally we would’ve loved to have found a nice thrift shop coffee table and added a nice upholstered top to make a cheap and cheerful bench for the dressing room.

Unfortunately, no such table was to be found. So we did what DIYers do. We built one ourselves. Of course, as usual, we had big dreams and no clue where to start. In theory it seemed easy enough. Wood, nails…put them together.

After visiting Ana White’s amazing site, we came across this plan. Come on, it has the word EASIEST right in the title! It was perfect for us. Our bench is tweaked somewhat from Ana White’s.

I went this up this afternoon after seeing the plans. It's only 3 feet long because I only had one board that was salvaged from a friends garage. I could not bring myself to use another piece of lumber I went this up this afternoon after seeing the plans. It's only 3 feet long because I only had one board that was salvaged from a friends garage. I could not bring myself to use another piece of lumber different

This project was greatly inspired by another user's version. The extra 1x2s on the front and the color scheme. Also, in the plans you are told to use plywood for the back, I ended up using hardboard because it is less expensive and also much lighter. I found the console to be quiet heavy already so this really helped. Finally, the other user stained the top with English chestnut and I used "special walnut".

Built this table to have plenty of room for all the kids and a few family members for holidays

My daughter talked me into making her this custom full size storage bed, with a power center and a night light.

We needed bunkbeds for our 4 and 2 year old before baby 3 came along. We used the basics of the side street bunk bed, combined it with modified plans of the playhouse stairs and then added bookshelves as the headboard and storage bins underneath. It took us about 4 different weekends plus to finish it. We used mostly 2x4s and 2x6s for pieces holding it together and 1x6s for most of the sides. We absolutely love how this turned out! Both kids have plenty of room for books and animals on their headboards. There are skinny shelves at the foot of the bottom bunk for books and the storage bins are awesome for cars, dolls, dinosaurs, etc. The stairs store blankets, toys, misc (there is alot of storage under the bottom bed too...just more difficult to get to...we cut 3 pieces of plywood for bottom bunk so we could access things underneath). The boards underneath the top bunk are 1x10s. The stairs were the most difficult part of this project. Hopefully this bunkbed will be passed down to grandkids! We had a great time building it! VERY sturdy too.

Thank You Ana White for posting the plans to make this great project! Mine is a little different without the "X" on the sides....maybe mine should be rustic ( / ) consule....

My husband built this twin farmhouse bed for our son. I stained and poly'd. We modified the plans slightly to fit our needs. We also added the trundle.

Submitted by Jennie Wood

This was my husband and mine's first DIY project! We started off using a miter box, and quickly caved and bought a miter saw. We also had trouble getting the X's to fit correctly, so we redid them and made it in a different order than Ana--we lined them up on the boards they would be attaching to and drilled in there. So we didn't make X's and then attach, but rather did it all at once. This made sure everything fit together!

Also, we didn't stain the top pieces of wood before we assembled, and it was hard to get in-between the boards, definitely recommend at least one coat of stain before attaching the top!

Had a great time making this bench, and love it!! Everyone that sees it is so impressed!! We made this one for outdoors, but we are thinking of making another in nicer wood for our indoor dining room table....

Wine hutch with added trim to give a finished look.

This wedding present for Dan's sister's wedding present took us a very long time to complete. 

We finished all the little boxes and sides in an afternoon, but logical problems meant putting it all together took ages.

The Bride had specified she liked white weathered (rustic?) paint (can't think if there's a better name).

We finished it with two coats of grey stain, then two coats white paint that we sanded off a few hours after painting. 

I think it came out great ! The edges are a little uneven and of course the shelves aren't completely level... but hey - rustic!

This was a doozy! Being only our second project ever (the farm table being our first) it took us about 3 weeks of hard work on the weekends and light work on the weekdays to complete this project. We extended the guardrails in both height (using 3ea 1x4s) and length to span the entire backside and all the way to the ladder on the front on top bunk. We wanted to be able to have a regular height mattress on each, so that if we take them apart to use as two separate beds they'd have a decent mattress on both. We also made two regular length, but extended height guardrails for the bottom to accommodate a toddler. We used the mortise bed rail fasteners from Rockler (due to the design the non-mortised kind were not an option). That took a good chunk of time. We also did 1x2 slats,13 per bed,to act as the mattress support. As with most projects, the lumber was around $200! The other was made up of sanding supplies, prep, stain, finish, safety supplies (mask, gloves) screws and so forth. I bet we spent about $40 on screws alone as we wanted to be really sure it's solid for two monkeys. It's a really beautiful piece that would cost well over $1000 if purchased mainstream.

My first wood working mallet!

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0njs9X5Nyg