Community Brag Posts

I took shop class for a quarter in eighth grade, but other than that, I have never constructed anything out of wood! I decided to pick a small project first and loved the Kid's Storage Step Stools I saw people making. My husband taught me how to use the circular saw and jigsaw and I finished building this in about 2 hours.

This was my second Ana build. I picked the cooler out of someone trash. (the wheels had broke off) Thank you brick house!!! I been wanting to do this plan for a while now, I'm just too cheap to buy the cooler.
The cooler stand plans were nice to have. I had lots of scrap from my hubby but I did have to buy two 1x3x8 to finish the lid. I had trouble with the lid lining up with the cooler. With the hinged attached to the lid, I lined up the cooler, mark it out and re-screwed it to the cooler . Easy. Next time I'll go to Habitat for Humanity or the like for the hardware. I will also remember to finish the wood before assembly. I didn't put the drain in the stand. After inspection of the cooler if won't drain completely if I did, so let it off.
It took me almost a week to finish between mom duties, volunteer work, and church but she's done.
Thanks Ana for the plans. I couldn't have done it without them.

Used treated wood.  Stain was BEHR PREM SOLID STN REDWOOD.

Rustic modern table I built out of 2x4’s and 2x10’s.

Using Ana's Ten Dollar Ledges project, we created these shelves for our children's rooms. They were so easy to make and paint and hang. We absolutely love them and so do the kids! Our shelves were 32" long to fit in a particular spot. The shelves also cost a little more than the price listed in the plans. Perhaps my husband bought a higher grade of wood. I'm not sure, but it was worth it regardless. You can see more of our kids' rooms and our old house renovations at our blog Lovely Chaos.

I wanted to make a built in storage bench for the breakfast nook in our eat-in kitchen, but wasn't entirely sure how to go about the process. After seeing Ana's "Mimi's Storage Bench" I thought the plan could be modified to fit our space, so I convinced my husband to give it a shot. We've done a fair amount of carpentry in our house, but this is the first piece of furniture that we have ever built. Thanks to Ana's plans and our new Kreg jig, it turned out better than I ever imagined. We absolutely love the new bench, where my toddler spends every morning eating his breakfast while staring out the window and giggling at the squirrels in our backyard.

I made my first dining table using pocket holes. About a week after I sold it, I ended up having to go to the lady's house and put one of the legs back on it. I quickly realized pocket holes were great for most things, but dining table legs might not be the best. Ever since then, I've been using dowels to reinforce pocket hole joints on table legs. So far it's been a great solution. Here is a video explaining how it works. Hope you like it. Patrick

Turned out beautifully for our master bedroom!

This is the first of 3 raised garden beds based on Ana's plan found here: raised garden beds. My and our twin 5 yr old daughters' job this weekend is to fill them. CAN'T WAIT!

MODIFICATIONS
He added a board to the top to make them a little higher. Our first set of boards came from Home Depot, and this box came to around $30. The boards are really rough, so we may sand them a bit as we have little kids and don't want TOO many splinters. Our next 2 boxes will be made from materials from another chain here in Minnesota, Menard's, and they are much smoother (and cheaper - on sale this week for $1.50 a board!)

We also had a really hard time finding outdoor 1" screws, so he used 1 1/4" ones and didn't countersink them.

I am also planning on putting in some landscape fabric inside to help keep weeds out and water/dirt in, since the seams are porous.

We followed Ana's plans to the letter and every cut, every corner, everything turned out perfectly! We put about 3 hours into the bench on day one, and finished up on the second day with stain and polyurethane. The only change we made was to make it slightly shorter and have less overhang on each edge.
Thanks Ana!!

Awesome plans!  Followed everything and it came out great.  Thank you soooo much, my son loves it!!!

Floating Bed

This is basically just a scaled down version of our porch swing, with a few adjustments for safety. The best part? Its baby approved! She swings away happily watching her sibs playing in the yard, She likes it so well, in fact, that I frequently find myself carrying a sleeping baby from swing to bed. :)

Easy 3 tier planter.  Made from Ana White's plan  Made for free from scrap wood  that I pulled out of the trash and portions from a pallet, ripped 2x4 and shipping container.  #ForMereMortals #planter    

A smaller version of the farmhouse 4x4 truss beam table. Made with inexpensive Douglas Fir construction wood. My biggest woodworking project yet. Very satisfying!

Deb B

What a fun project. Based on Ana White's Media Console that was very close to what I wanted. I changed up the size to work in my room. I needed a shorter length to fit the space I had. I did not use the doors or drawers. For my first project they intimidated me a bit. I also needed access to the TV box.

I subtracted for the legs so they ended flush with the bottom of the console and used some fun wheels to be able to move it around. Finally, I did not like seeing all of the cords behind it so I added a back with cutout for the cords and painted it the same color as the console.

As it was built "on the fly" I did not keep detailed measurements to share. Can't wait to pick out my next project! Thanks Ana for all you do.