Community Brag Posts

My daughter is OBSESSED with trains and I've been yearning to make a project from ana's page for YEARS. This was a perfect opportunity to start my first project and I'm pretty proud of myself with the results!

I scouted out wood for a few weeks and bought all my 1x6's and 1x3's at a discount wood place and the 1x2's were on sale at Home Depot for .80 cents a pop. All cuts were free cuts with the 'big machines' at the lumber shops.

I used pocket holes to attach the frame and the frame to the bottom plywood and plugged the holes.

I hand sanded all the wood before building and then at a finer grade after and finer still between finish coats.

Wood conditioned and stained in English Chestnut (2 coats) and 3 coats of high gloss clear finish over a period of 3 days. All Minwax.

Aside from a few wonky pocket hole screws going through the other side (my first time using a kreg is this project) and having to fix 'em, this was a pretty easy/fun project to do. My 2 year old helped plug holes and sand a little.

The flip-side of the shiny stained table top is a chalkboard which has been a HUGE hit because it is almost tripple the size kiddo has been drawing with and it's pretty nice. The chalkboard paint was the latex stuff found in home-depot...some can be coloured but i went with standard black.

Love this plan from that's my letter! I modified the base slightly by using 2x2s secured to 1/4" hardboard. I also increased the base dimensions to 11x11 so it could accommodate additional storage.

I built a farm house dining room table last week and wanted to add more seating to it. I found this bench on here and decided to add my own touch to it. Was going to be a cheap project but 2 inch foam is a lot more then I thought.

I just finished setting up my bedroom, not a lot of cash for the furniture and look I wanted so I decided to tackle your farmhouse designs and do it myself. I found these scrolled wood panels at homegoods (homesense here in Canada). I used two panels, each had 5 sectioned scrolled squares so I cut one section off of each panel to use on each of the side tables. I still have to finish the bed's footboard and side rails with the last 4 sectioned panel piece that I have left.

I was surprised how these turned out. I got the old world look at a very good price...for a total cost under $300. I think I got a pretty nice deal.

I think I might try and do some more projects maybe the buffet next.

This was a Great Project! my First bigger project!. I modified it from the original plans to reduce the size into a double door rather than a 3 door, for space reasons. I also made it a little wider to store my gigantic printer. It is currently serving as a cabinet for my home office. This project was pretty strait forward and lots of fun. I was a little weiry about all the hardware that was necessary, however i found a great deal on amazon.ca i got a 25 pack of pulls for $48! so that was a relief. This project took me about 2 weeks to complete working on and off. i was also building in cold garage at start of January so Stain took a while to set/cure/dry. Over all great project and easy to follow and modify the plans!

4x4 farmhouse beam table using pressure treated lumber, made a little longer to accomodate 6' church pews, so pleased with the build, best part, it took me 3 hrs to complete!

While both massively pregnant, my friend enlisted me to help her baby-proof the house by replacing her metal/glass coffee table with the flip-top wooden version. She was 7 months and I was 8, and we got quite a few sideways looks at Lowe's! Needless to say we had a lot of help loading up the truck ;) It only took an afternoon to build, sand and stain. Now her little boy is appreciating the much more baby-friendly table!

After my Daughter had twin boys in December 2012, I decided I would expand on my woodworking experience by making them this Pirate Chest toy box. Since there were two of them, my 'work' was doubled.

I DID learn some new things with this project. I had never used Pocket Hole joinery before and I was a little timid about doing it. I found that it's really pretty easy.

I also learned that when cutting on the table saw, I could NOT cut on the line drawn on the wood. As a result, some of the cuts were a bit short (but wood filler helped there).

My biggest problem was cutting the radius on the box tops since I don't have a band saw. It was difficult cutting the curve with a Jig Saw, so the Rasp, Plane and sandpaper came in handy.

The other problem I had was getting the slats on the top to meet up tightly. I found I had to cut a slight bevel on each edge so that the top of the slat would meet the next one.

I presented the boxes to the Boys at their First Birthday party just after Christmas and received a number of compliments. There was one woman that may want me to make one for her son. Needless to say I was a bit proud of myself.

I have been eyeing up plans to build a table for awhile, but wasn't sure exactly what I wanted. I like this plan because it's a beginner plan and is pretty simple to follow. I have built a few smaller projects, but this was the first big piece. I love the way it turned out.

Things I changed:  I made it a little shorter (table top is 68 inches) to accomodate the size of our kitchen.  I used 4x4 legs - I like the chunkiness of thicker sturdier legs.  Used 2x8 for the bench. Again, I like the thickness over a 1x.  I did use 1x10s for the table top, but I added trim (1x2) to make it look chunky. I would have just used the 2x10, but b/c they have rounded edges, and I didn't want gaps for crumbs to have to clean out. I wouldn't have minded this for a dining room table, but we're using in kitchen with 3 small children. The 1x10s are squared off so they fit together better. And adding the 1x2 trim gives it the chunky look I added the corner brackets and lag bolts, mainly for decorative style I used kona stain and white paint. 

Used 4 coats of satin poly. I built both piece in a weekend, but I would say it's more of a week project on a realistic timeframe.

Loved how easy, Inexpensive and fast this method of customized drawer organizers was to make.

The plastic desk drawer divider we had in this drawer got broken, so I made one from poplar 1x2. I made the pencil boxes large enough to hold an unsharpened pencil. The center box is big enough to put a screwdriver on the drawer pull screws, if they become loose. The divider is friction fit, with its bottom edges sanded smooth to make installation easier. Used screws to pull it together, since brad nails tended to drive pieces apart.

I turned my son's room into the TMNT Secret Sewer Lair. I created artwork using a 1x8 piece of lumber and printed images on laser paper I found online. Cost $6.99
I created the outlets by printing on laser paper and decoupaging them onto the coverings. The cost for decoupage glue at Wal-Mart was $3.00 for 4oz, called Mod Podge. Which was more than enough since I used the same technique on my 20yr old bunk bed and nightstand and had some to spare. However you must use a x-acto knife to cut away white space so that print looks apart of the furniture. The individual Turtle characters I purchased from eBay because it was free shipping they were $17.99 each. The round table I turned into nightstand was $9.00 at Wal-mart and I hand painted it along with decoupaging the logo on to it. Any questions feel free to email! I hope this helps with ideas. I was lost do to lack of ideas online.

This was my first build and the table looks great! The instructions given were right on. Thanks so much...

Hi Ana
My granddaughter is starting first grade in the Fall. She needs a desk so I checked out your site and found this simple yet functional project. It worked up in no time. Now Gianna just needs to pick a paint color.

I also found a slight boo boo in the plans. See the marked up cut list.
Thanks for all you do.

Built a "lemonade stand" for the kiddos, but wanted it to be more versatile so we named it Price Place Market (think Seattle's Pike Place...haha) All letters are cut out from a 1/4" plywood on a scroll saw. We used bead board instead of plain old plywood for the insert and finished it with a antique crackle. Marshmallow white over green tea. Can't wait for this weekend! Watch out people, the kids are irresistible as well as the lemonade stand! Get your wallets out!

I made two of these, one to keep and one for a birthday gift. No more crayons rolling off the table and breaking on the floor. As someone new to wood working, I split two boards on the very last holes before I finally got it right by using brad-point drill bit. This produced the cleanest holes as well. I scaled down the number of holes too, just a personal choice. They both turned out so cute!

I used the Farmhouse Table plans as inspiration for my concrete kitchen island. I doubled up on the stretchers to add additional support for the 3x5 (275lb) cast concrete top and reversed the legs to expose the notches which were cut using a table saw. I used two coats of Minwax Golden Oak stain and two coats of Minwax polyurethane for the finish. The galvanized lag screws on the end supports are decorative, not structural. I used galvanized plumbing pipe to support the shelves and accessorized with bottle/wine openers. The top required 3 80lb bags of Quikrete 5000 and was sealed and waxed using Cheng concrete products. Because the concrete top was cast off-site, I had to build an A-frame to transport it safely to the installation site.

8ft barn door console . Thanks Ana White for you free plans.

David