Emerson Change Table
This is my first wood project. Thanks Ana for the plan. My wife and I will enjoy the dresser.
This is my first wood project. Thanks Ana for the plan. My wife and I will enjoy the dresser.
My wife needed a desk to work at home from and nothing on the retail market interested us, so I offered to build one. I followed the plans for a Farmhouse Desk, but with a change for the top. I chose a pre-sanded 3/4" red oak top and trim to cover the plywood edges. We didn't want the lips or edges that may show up using the planned 1x6" planks. The desktop measures 31.5 x 71.5" which is large, but allows for a lot of work to be accomplished. I added a grommet hole for the wires and a 3 1/8" hole for a desktop outlet with 2 USB's, 1 USB-C and two regular outlets. I also added a 9-input power strip / surge protector on the underside of the desk that the desktop outlet plugs in to. So only the power strip plugs into the wall and everything is surge protected.
It took me 4 weeks and about 25 hours, as I made it around my work schedule and family life.
Douglas Fir 4x4 truss beam table, made from the listed plans (modified for a 72" table top and concrete used for the top). Also, added steal gusset plates with lag bolts to replicate appearance of exposed truss beams. Used pocket screws in conjunction with lag bolts. Benches were altered with half-lap joints for strength (very time consuming). Concrete table top made with Quikrete countertop mix (charcoal powder pigment added), an aluminum "M" inlay, and slurry coated with a lighter gray grout to fill in bugholes/ voids.
Table was fairly easy- hard part was finding straight wood (mostly green DF is sold near me, so some beams would warp beyond suitability as they dried). I had to purchase a few extras to get the pieces correct. If KD is available, go with that. I was able to find KD DF at another hardware store for the benches.
Concrete was a PITA. I never worked with concrete before. Watched a million youtube videos, read countless blogs, etc. So much good info out there and I probably over-researched it. I despise concrete, now (the mixing/ pouring/ screeding/ and weight) but I LOVE the result.
The project was my secret excuse to buy tools Ive always wanted.
If I wouldve been able to work straight through, I think I couldve completed this in a month. The table and benches were a couple of weekends worth. The concrete took most of my time with making melamine molds, special ordering the bags, renting the mixer, waiting it to cure, polishing and filling the top, etc. A wood top wouldve cut down on the overall time considerably.
If you do a wood top (as I did for my benches), either use some type of joiner to get the board edges perfectly squared against one another with no gaps, OR leave gaps big enough between boards to let crumbs fall through, OR (this is what I did for my benches) I used a super clear (Lexel) caulk for the seams of the boards and then went over it after it dried with the satin polycrylic to take away any gloss. Now all those crumbs dont get wedged between the boards. They wipe away with ease.
Finally, I used heavy duty felt (4x6") from the local HD at $2.50 a pair. Cut them to size and used the self-adhesive WITH gel superglue to put on bottom of bench and table legs. A must.
Sun, 03/15/2015 - 05:55
wooow! I love the concrete table top. How much do you think it weighs?
In reply to wooow! I love the concrete by handmadewithash
Mon, 03/16/2015 - 10:57
The top was made from nearly 4 bags of counter top mix. I did create a lip by placing an insert in the mold, taking out a bit of weight, while giving it a 2" profile edge. It's about 300lbs still! I had 3 people help me lift it into place.
Tue, 03/17/2015 - 07:26
Nice job on the concrete top! Turned out great and coordinates well with the base. Cheers! - DIY Pete
My girlfriend requested I make this stand for our TV which is 46". (It looks like something she wanted from a furniture store that was being sold for around $1,100.) I followed the plan, but customized the size. My table is 60" long and 24" high.
We wanted to make a weatherbeaten "driftwood" look. The Classic Gray was darker and had more opacity with one coat than expected, so we stopped at one coat. Classic Gray is a lot "cooler" in tone before the clear coats, because the clear polyurethane I used has a warm tint to it. (In the future, I also want to try the crystal clear Minwax Polycrylic, which would not warm the tone of the gray.) After the stain, we added some brown dry brushstrokes to make it look rustic or aged.
I lightly sanded between each of the clear coats. Two coats on the under parts and three coats on the top.
I added felt pads that I cut to fit to protect our floors from scratching.
The wood is part pine and part common board.
Girlfriend loves it! It is a huge hit. Lots of compliments from neighbors as I worked, too.
First shot at using plans from Ana, and thought it was great! Can’t wait to try another!
Combined Mimi's Storage Bence with the Shoe Shrine Shelf and came up with a what we really needed. I like how it turned out!
I enjoyed building this project for my wife. The plans are easy to follow. I decided to trim the desk by adding 1x3 boards along the sides, and widened the shelves on the bottom with additional 1x3 boards. I also found an old chair and stained it to match the desk.
We found an outdoor set online that we LOVED - until we saw the price tag haha! So DIY to the rescue, as always. This was our first project that we have ever done based on our own plans, but I did refer to Ana's adirondack post when deciding on the back-tilt of the chairs' support. The simplicity of the set definitely helped with the fact that we blazed our own trail - just straight cuts with a miter saw and screws! Easy peasy. We LOVE it, especially because they're so solid with these 4x4's so our kids can run all over these things like monkeys. DIY forever!
I built this bed for my (adult) son. The instructions were easy to follow. I left off the 2 x 2" cleats on the headboard to make it easier to attach the tongue and groove headboard pieces with pocket hole screws (I did lay two 2 x 2's underneath the tongue & groove pieces for spacing as I attached the boards). Since I made this as a platform bed I added a 6th tongue & groove headboard piece and the optional center cleat underneath. I used the suggested Varathane Weathered Wood Accelerator for the finish; mine came out much more grey than the bed pictured with the plans and my son liked the finish (I did too). Finding non-pressure treated 4x4's and semi-straight 2x4's was the hardest part. I used pine wood and bought all the lumber for about $175 (purchased at peak COVID lumber prices). This bed is definitely solid and I'm looking forward to making the matching nightstand! Thank you Ana for the bed plans!
Sun, 09/05/2021 - 11:13
Wonderful job, it looks amazing, can't wait to see it with the matching night stands!
I found this website while trying to find DIY plans for a bookcase for my sons room. After I saw all the plans, the bookcase project got bumped down the list. My husband was a little skeptical when I said I wanted to build a kitchen table, but he still handed over the keys to his truck and off I went to the hardware store.
I built this during the night after my 4 month old son went down for the night, so usually around 7:30pm. I tried to be finished with anything loud (sanding) by 9pm. I changed the dimensions to be shorter and wider than the plans and I removed the stretchers since I wanted the option to put chairs on the ends. To keep the table sturdy and square I substituted 2 x 6 for the side boards instead of 2 x 4 and also added corner supports underneath. Because I had 2 x 6 as the side boards I also needed to make the table slightly higher to still give adequate leg room. The table is 31" high instead of the normal 30". The top is 2 x 10 tongue and groove clear Doug Fir left over from a flooring project.
I sanded the entire table starting with 80 grit, 120, 220 and then used 320 in between polyurethane coats. I also sanded down all corners and edges since in no time my son will be learning to walk and I want to avoid serious injuries by running into sharp corners.
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Tue, 04/30/2013 - 09:19
Beautiful! I'll bet your husband is a believer now!
Fri, 01/03/2020 - 12:59
you did a great job! Love your stain and finish! Nice job!
Fri, 01/03/2020 - 12:59
you did a great job! Love your stain and finish! Nice job!
My son and I made this shelf unit when converting our basement to a dorm for him. While we think it turned out great, it DID take a lot longer than the plans suggest. The video suggests it can be completed in a couple of hours. It took us about 4 days. I found the instructions very clear which was very helpful. We chose a darker stain for our unit. It's very functional, although a little bit wobbly. My husband plans to attach it to the wall for better stability. Thanks so much for a perfect solution to a room without a closet! He loves it and we've received many compliments. And I liked that we built it together. Cost was spot on for what you estimated. About $200
Took the console table and made some slight modifications to give different compartments for a TV stand :) Currently made the "Rustic" themed coffee table and some end tables. All have the matching "X" accents on the sides. Cabinet set into the center with shelves on either side. It's nice to have customized shelf heights for my various TV accessories.
First AW project - very easy to follow with the plans, comments, and some basic problem solving. We like others did substitute some 4x4s for her stacked 2x4s.
We used 2x8 Ash boards for the top, rough milled down at a local hardwood depot. ($600...Ouch). The lumber was glued up with Titebond iii and clamped with pipe clamps. Then used a combination of electric planer and belt sander to make sure it was completely flat and even after the glue up. Finish sanding was done with a 6" orbital, and the ends were cut flush with a circ saw.
The base of the table was the easiest (and cheapest). It is made of kiln dried Doug Fir from the blue big box store. A photo of the cut list we used is attached. Used a chop saw for everything. This video helped visualize everything even though ours were not exactly the same. We used similar screw selection as this video as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg_hwoekV80
We used a kreg bit to predrill/counter sink our screws. Then purchased Douglas fir wood plugs from this etsy user. Didnt feel like cutting our own. This user has a lot of other species as well.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/991000659/douglas-fir-clear-tapered-wood-p…
A lot of people had questions about how to connect the top to the base. We routed a groove on the top of the base on each side and connected the two with Z clips. We used this method:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Z69COtzzw
And these clips:
https://www.amazon.com/Table-Fasteners-Connectors-Screws-Brackets14/dp/…
Finishing was the most stressful part. Our first staining attempt was very blotchy despite being sanded very well and using a preconditioner. Since we spent so much money on the top and wanted this to be a perfect heirloom piece, we ended up re-planing and sanding the whole top (Kill me). We then used this method to precondition the wood by The Wood Whisperer - which worked great:
The table final coat was finished using these methods by PMK Woodworking. 3:2:1 ratio of
Mineral Spirits: Oil Based Poly: Boiled Linseed Oil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxP5YuTHyic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_6g4oGEJ5s
Overall very happy. Took way longer and cost way more than expected. But hopefully will be our forever table that our kids will fight over one day. If you wanted to do this cheap and have it look rustic with imperfections, that would also be great and very doable.
Thanks to Ana, all the links above, and all your comments!
Good luck
My husband and I built these end tables together. The construction took about 3 hours.
In reply to Just Beautiful! by Ana White Admin
Thu, 03/26/2015 - 20:27
Thank YOU so much!
We had fun building them.
This wonderful addition to my front porch was a delight to build.
Client wanted some to sell cookies out on her porch. So I added a blackboard at her request so she could put prices and e-transfer info. Top shelf will also house an honor box for cash. Papa & Grammy Creations.
I really dont have any plans for this build. I wanted to purchase a nice rustic media center for my living. I am mounting my flat screen on the wall and wanted a cool media center to sit below it. So I came up with this project. I still plan on lightly sanding it some to bring out the grain and have that look of streaks. I also still need to add polycrylic, clear gloss. I literally just got done staining it. The pictures really dont do it any justice. It looks wayy better in person. Being that this is my first project it took me 1 week to build, sand and stain. Still have some work to put it to it, just a coat of polycrylic and light sanding. I probably have over 30 hours in to this build and around 40 bucks for screws, sandpaper, stain, glue and countersink bits. I think that is it, if you have any questions or comments please let me know! :)
Sun, 05/05/2013 - 22:38
Wow, looks pretty incredible! Nice job with the stain, too.
Tue, 05/07/2013 - 19:09
Thank you!! I appreciate it. While I was staining it in my garage, with the garage door open. I had a few couples that walked by stop to talk and ask questions about the piece. Made me feel good that your hard work is appreciated. Thanks again!
My daughter needed a new bed and I needed a project, so we headed to ana-white.com to find a plan that filled both of our needs. We settled on the Stacy Daybed and got to work.
I followed the plans pretty much on par, but made a few minor changes to make it easier to take apart and put back together. You can also see that I added width to the legs in front, allowing the weight of the sleeper to set on the legs instead of being supported solely by the furniture bolts and metal thread inserts I used to hold it together. I duplicated this in back to keep the design balanced.
This project was fun and challenging and the plans were very easy to follow as well as modify to my needs.
Father and son project. Took less than half a day. Already have three offers to build for friends. Couldn't find 10' Cedar so had to use 8' Using scrap pieces of cedar to make a coffee table. Great plans!
My first “Ana White plans” project. Great plans and easy to follow. Very comfortable chairs.
Comments
Ana White
Wed, 03/11/2015 - 15:56
Very nice!!!
Very nice!!!