Community Brag Posts

My wife has been looking for a new kitchen table for the house. Me being thrifty and not wanting to drop a grand plus on a kitchen table at PB, I decieded I would make one.

I modified a few of the plans I found on this site to make it work for us and our space.

After about a weekends worth of work and $140 in stain and wood, I got a table that's 100 times better than what PB has for sale.

I even got a little crafty and figured out an Ikea hack for the light.

I used builder grade top choice 2x8s, 2x10s, and 2x12s for the table and bench, a blow torch to distress the wood a bit, and three coates of misson oak stain.

If anyone wants my plans, I have them done up in CAD as well.

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This is my Thank You Project.  I made this as was presented with the plans from my daughter and asked to make it.  Thanks to Ana White for posting great plans to follow.   This unit has been through five moves with teenagers doing the lifting.  There are no issues except I did repaint it.  http://ana-white.com/2011/12/plans/hillary039s-locker-cabinet-charging-cubbies This is my first project so I followed the plans exactly. 

Built this guitar stand basically by using on-hand materials left over from another project.  Used 1x12's; 18" tall fir for sides and back braces (cut at 5 degrees on each side).  Added felt strips to protect the instrument.

I used cedar left over from a bar my husband made in our kitchen. I didn't have to purchase any materials as I used his left over pieces.

I didn't like my ledges with the back board, and I wasn't too keen on making the key holes. Instead of 24 inches I made my shleves 1 ft. long. I also laid the spacers so that the distance between the top and bottom of the ledge was less than the plan called for. This allowed me to attach a wooden strip (7.5 x 1.5 cut from the cedar 1x4 that I ripped on the table saw) to the wall that the barn beam shelf slips onto and anchors the ledges instead of using the key hole hanger.

This coffee table was my first build. Its a blend of mulitple coffee table designs by Ana White.

Pretty easy to make.  Lots of sanding time since you are working with 2x4s. Assembly was easy.

Built the benchright table with a few modifications. Finding straight or even somewhat straight 2x2's is near impossible so I used top choice 2x4s. I used a chain and a turnbuckle instead of the black iron pipe. I painted the hardware with copper spray paint. The stain is ebony miniwax water based stain. Let me know what you think, I'm open to suggestions.

I made this one huge! It is 6 feet by 6 feet. I handpainted the birds, and I used Ana's technique for painting on the letters.

My daughter-in-law needed a compact sewing table, and this plan fit the bill perfectly! I did use 2 x 2 legs instead of 1 x 2s. This makes the table considerably more stable if you plan to use this table with your machine. If you do use the 2 x 2s for legs, you will need to widen your table top dimensions from 15 1/2" to 17" to accommodate the larger diameter of the legs. I also used a piano hinge for each drop leaf. They weren't much more expensive than the hinges listed in the plans, but again, they provide more stability (imho).

I wanted to show the locking mechanism for the legs in detail. I love these as they hold the legs in place when the drop leaf is down, and they pop into place when the leaf is in use. Called "folding leg fitting" it is part S-149L at $3.65 each at the following link:

http://www.hardwaretree.com/proddetail.php?prod=S-149L

When my daughter-in-law received her gift on Christmas Eve, she wouldn't even let me keep it for another day or two so I could touch-uppaint some spots...she loves it.

Thank you, Ana, for the wonderful plans!!

My grandson loves Lego's.  So for his birthday I built him a Lego table.  The top is reversible so it can be used for other activities when not playing with Lego's.  It also has 6 storage bin's that slide out.  I also built a stool that looks like a Lego.  It has storage and it's on wheels.

We used the plans for the Fancy X Farmhouse Table and made some modifications to fit our space. Our first mod was to make it only 65 in long ... which meant the angled pieces in the middle aren't there any longer as it would have been too busy. The second mod we made was anywhere it stated to put 2 2x4s together we replaced it with Douglas Fir 4x4 (found at our Orange store).

We remodeled our house and now had a new 9x6 master closet to fill. During construction I saw this design on ana-white.com and liked the style, but wanted to customize the layout. I found an online closet designer and played around until I found something my wife and I liked. We ended up with a 9 foot long his/hers double hanging on the ends and a long hanging section in the middle. And on the other side 8 feet of shelving (leaving about a foot for other storage).

I bought the pipe as a 10 foot pipe to be cut and threaded (for free by the store). I did have to change the design a little because the store cannot thread pipe less than 14 inches. So I ended up replacing the short pipes and T's with 2x4s. That made it a little cheaper and I still like the end result.

We stained all the wood using Minwax "Early American". This probably accounts for most of the build time.

Then I put together the supports and brought them into the closet to add all the pipes and slats. I started with the wall for hanging. And later did the shelving.

Here's another forum with more pictures of this project:

http://woodworking.formeremortals.net/me-mo-community/#/discussion/866/…

I followed the plans exactly, and added the headboard at my daughter's request. My brother recently tore down an old fence, and I pulled this gate out from under a brush pile. I strengthened it with lots of screws and cut each side to bring it down to the same width as the bed. The whole project cost me somewhere around $150-160 because I literally had nothing but a drill. I had to buy everything from screws to nails to wood conditioner, etc. Not bad for a truly "from-scratch" project.

This was my second-built project after finding Ana's wonderful site - the first being the Rustic-X coffee table.  After learning how to use a miter saw, jig saw and kreg pocket hole jig for the first time by watching Ana's video tutorials as well as several others available on the web, I built up the confidence to attempt a media console for my three video-gaming boys. 

I pieced together a design plan for the console using the general design of Ana's Apothecary Console Plan, together with the incredibly helpful plans and instructions detailed on 2Crafty4myskirt.blogspot.com.  Kind of like mixing together pieces of different recipes, I was able to create a design that had the length of Ana's console, plus 2Crafty's wonderfull side-storage doors for all of the boy's video games.

As set forth in detail below, I used Ralph Lauren's Carbon paint for the entire unit, and Minwax Red Chesnut Wood finish to distress the edges.  I used Pecan Minwax Polyshades Stain & Polurethane for the table top.  One of the most helpful pieces of advice from 2Crafty was to leave attachment of the back and top of the unit until they are separately painted and stained.

I finished the false fronts with antique copper (bronze) cabinet label holders (2 1/2") which I purchased online at D. Lawless Hardware online.

As a beginner, I had a steep learning curve in learning how the tools worked (safely), and so it took me about 40 hours all in to finish the project.  While my sons helped along the way, my husband didn't actually set eyes on the project until it was complete.   He was stunned at how beautiful it was - and that I had in fact created what he calls the "center-piece" of our family room from a pile of lumber purchased at Home Depot.  He is full of helpful suggestions of what I should make next!

Thank you Ana for providing me with the tools, skills and confidence to produce a piece of furniture that I am very proud to point to and say "I did that!"

We were given this fireplace insert and need something to house it. After searching the web, we decided that Ana's faux fireplace design was our best option. We modified the measurements to fit our needs and added a wood stained top to serve as our "mantle". We are thrilled with how it turned it!