I used Western red cedar to build my chairs. The build was a little more expensive but well worth it. The chairs were stained with Cabot’s Australian Timber Oil ( Jarrah Brown). Thanks for the plans Ana, your site is awesome and you do a great job! Mark
So fun! Directions were easy! Can also be used as Backpack hanger if you put a little bit longer feet on them. I bought the metal hooks from Walmart.
I loved the look of the Craft room Storage tower but modified to suit my wife's bathroom theme/decor. The inside back (MDF beadboard) is painted a milk coffee color to lighten it up. The door inserts are plexiglass, which was more expensive than glass but with 2 boys 6 and 2 it is well spent, and the MDF beadboard. Covered the plexiglass with self-adhesive film for glass on both sides to hide the towels inside. This project took me about 12 hours to complete but over a 3 month period, mostly spent on finishing the project with my boys underfoot or at 12-2am. YIKES!!! If i keep this up she will want to buy instead of letting me build.
Price List:
wood: $100
Stain/Paint: left over from house reno. would have been $15 stain $20 Varnish 30$ quart of paint
Handle: $7
Hinges: $4 basic style
I wanted to use Eurostyle hinges but opted to buy the Kreg system instead of Forstner drill bits.
Will be building another just different dimensions for laundry room makeover.
Sat, 01/26/2013 - 12:18
Thanks! It was my first furniture building project! I did a huge reno that i did on my house but that is construction and 1/8th in isnt as big of an issue as in furniture.
Mon, 01/28/2013 - 20:45
I've been wanting to build something similar for my bathroom! Yours turned out great. It inspires me to get to work!
So, my skills have been as a cobbler, handy kind of guy for decades. Rough shelving for shop/garage basement storage etc... I've always done all my home maintenance and repairs so I'm familiar with a lot of stuff in and around the house. However I've never attempted a finished piece of furniture before. As always, I love the build and hate the finishing process.
My daughter had a pretty new mattress that she loved which was 13 inches thick and her celling is the standard 8 feet. Consider these kind of things before you build this design. We did and the plans were altered a little bit. We'll be building the bookcase later and either buying or building a desk as well. She can set up in bed with several inches above her head and there will be plenty of room over her head in a standard height office/computer chair underneath. All I basically did was; add a few inches to the height of the legs and uprights for the guard rail (4" I think), increased the head, foot, back and guard rail top planks from 1X4s to 1X6s. Which changed the dimensions of some of the spacers too. She isn't sure she wants the top rails on it but I think I'll put them on later.
We made our own bunkie board for firmer support, which also raised the thickness about 1/4" over just slats.
Details: Ladder fits tight between the leg and the guard rail. Glad I got those dimensions right. We'll be using Velcro to fasten the ladder to the bed (it's that tight, it'll be fine and she's 14yrs old). This way we can take it off easier to clean, move etc. Glue and screw everything you can except the long boards that will allow it to be broken down. Glue them and you'll never get it apart without breaking it. I used Titebond III on everything else with lots of clamps along the way.
On the front and back of the ladder treads I simply smeared some filler in the joints to smooth them out. You can see the result in the pictures. There is one closeup of the finish so you can see how it turned out doing it the way I did. If you want is smoother then a 220 sandpaper finish is what was called for on the clear finish, which I didn't do.
I also said it was a weekend project 10-20hrs. Had I bought better wood and did an easier finish it would have been. My learning experiences/errors made it longer than that for me.
Lessons Learned:
1. Buy better wood! If you want a better finish buy better wood. By the time I was finished filling, sanding, filling again, sanding some more... I used almost a whole quart of filler to make knotty pine smooth. Just buy smooth wood, I'm tellin ya! Hours of work and dry time. Again, if you want a good finish, then you need to shellac knotty pine so the resin from the knots doesn't bleed through. Better wood might have added 5-10% to the materials cost but saved several hours and would have looked even better that what I achieved. Better wood and you could cut the shellac ($15 per quart) if you didn't want the two tone distressing.
2. Check the actual board dimensions. For outer facing pieces I bought some better wood with no knots (radiata pine). These were for the outside pieces on the legs. They were just a bit wider than the common boards that were sandwiched between them... more sanding and filling to get a nice square smooth finish. It also made clamping and gluing them together harder before the filling and sanding could even begin. See number 1 above. lol
Anyhow, I'm not afraid of building furniture anymore and my daughter loves it. OH, yes now we have to repaint her room and accessorize for the ocean cabin look. More projects with my daughter. YAY!!!!
Thanks Ana
Mon, 12/14/2020 - 09:59
The bed looks amazing and I can see many more projects in your future, I appreciate your added tips!
These are my wooden magazine files made after looking at Ana's plans. I chose to paint these to match my bathroom.
See more of my build process at http://www.bryanpryor.com/2013/01/26/magazine-holders/
Wed, 02/13/2013 - 21:20
Great idea for corraling the magazines that pile up in the bathroom! I really like the colors, too.
Made these for my niece as a wedding gift. These were one of the first of many of these I have made.
Fri, 02/26/2021 - 09:54
Love this build and your finish! Great job, what a wonderful gift!
I created these 16" cedar patio planters using Ana's plans. I bought four 6' cedar pickets from Lowe's for $1.98 each or under $8 for the lot. I used the extra picket to cut our my 1x2s and 1x3s so the whole construction is made of cedar including the pieces to hold a potted plant. I used Behr's clear and cedar finish to complete the job in under 1 hour. Thanks Ana for the motivation.
Fri, 03/05/2021 - 11:10
Looks great and doesn't break the bank! Thanks for sharing:)
This is a piece from Ana's book. I used the plans from the book and followed Shabby-2-chic's recommendation for the finish. I used 120 grit sandpaper to knock the edges off then applied a dark minwax stain. Soft scrub was used to remove the extra finish from my white paint. The kreg shelf pin jig was invaluable in getting the holes just right.
This bed was my 3rd project from Ana white. I'm just getting around to posting it now....
The headboard and footboard were made 2 inches wider than the original plans to account for my wider crib mattress. For my mattress width (28"), I required an extra 1x4 for the headboard and footboard center panels (7 instead of 6), along with 2 1x3s. This meant that I needed to add one extra 1x4 to my shopping list. I only required one 1x6, at a 10 foot length (since I didn't make the arch on the headboard).
Most of the work was done on our backyard deck, my outdoor workshop. I usually enjoyed the company of a little chipmunk as my "helper". He became very tame over the summer, allowing me to pick him up and pet him. At times, he would sit on my lap or ontop of my shoulder while I was working on a project. He was always with me, just hangin' out. I'm not really sure how long this project took, as I was usually distracted by his company!
I really enjoyed making this project! Our daughter was SO excited to sleep in her new big-girl bed!
Thanks Ana for the great plans!
Wed, 03/13/2013 - 13:40
Hi dmcarwin - Thanks so much for your comment!
I love my little helper as well. You, however, must be a VERY busy lady! With 6 little helpers??? How do you ever find the time for all your fabulous projects? You truly amaze me!
In reply to Little Helpers by Tea Granny
Wed, 03/13/2013 - 15:35
You are so sweet, I don't do projects in a normal time frame, they are more like, cut the wood one day, sand the next, build another, etc....It is rare I do a build all at once, for obvious reasons! But I truly love it and so I make the time for it when I can! I just checked out the rest of your projects they are fabulous!
Wed, 03/13/2013 - 18:07
Oh, yes. I certainly know about the non-normal time frames. My projects are done during nap-time or in the middle of the night. I finished a play kitchen at 4am on Christmas Day! Cutting it close - after numerous 4am nights, a couple all-nighters ...and about 40 hours later. I definitely was an elf in the workshop.
The play kitchen is pictured in the background of my second photo for my Toddler Chalkboard project. I used Ana's plans and another plan as my inspiration, heavily modified the measurements. I have not had time to post it yet, but soon....
Okay, so I've just checked out your blog! Wonderful.
Sun, 08/09/2015 - 06:51
This is gorgeous!!!!! My daughter will be two in two weeks, and while I'm not quite ready for a big girl bed, and we don't need her crib for another baby yet, I'm so excited to finally find the perfect plans when I am ready. You did a GREAT job, it's just beautiful. When I compare this to the $400 plus beds in stores I just shake my head and say THANK YOU ANA for giving us great alternative options. Thank you for the inspiration!!
Mud room bench with recycling cabinet
Took us 4 months cause we have kids so we have to work during naps and after bedtime and then we were hesitant to work on it for a while after a little stressful episode building the drawer. We had to lower our expectations for perfection when working with pine and no clamps. We're happy with how it turned out though! Reminds me of Van Gogh's "The Bedroom" for some reason.
My first big project. It turned out great! There are a couple of issues with the plans but nothing a little common sense couldn't resolve. Also, for any beginners out there, make sure when you're going through your cut list, start with the larger pieces first then work your way down to the smaller cuts. You'll end up having to take another trip to the hardware store if you cut the smaller pieces first. Great plans Ana White! I built this as a Christmas gift for my girlfriend. She was blown away! She absolutely loves it!
~Justin~
Pretty straight forward plans.
I was intrigued by Ana’s Simple 2x4 Potting Bench. The project seemed simple enough and it would be used as a means to clean up clutter in the garage. My main focus was to make it semi-portable and weather resistant. Instead of using 2x4’s for the corner posts, I used 4x4’s to accommodate casters. I also shorted the length of the posts by 4 inches to compensate for the height of the casters. To provide extra rigidity I did a dado for the 2x4’s that connect the front and rear legs. In retrospect, I wish that I did not dado the legs because it made it more difficult to attach some of the shelf planks. I painted the frame green and left the shelves and backboards clear for beautiful contrast. My wife is ecstatic with the result.
Thanks a lot for the free plans. We enjoy out new deck !
Made this coop in a weekend. $140 in material. Still a bit of work to do.
Used plans for Alexia bench.
I used leftover 4 x 4 pine we had for the legs. I bought some paneling and moulding to dress it up.
I also used leftover flooring for the drawer faces.
I've built a lot of things...mainly corn hole boards for friends and family but this is my first furniture build. My wife's Valentine present! Now I'm thinking my new big screen tv sure could use a nice Apothecary media cabinet.
I used the plans from JRLwoodworking and the pictures from AZCA33 and combined them to create an entertainment center to hold my new 60" flat screen tv. I priced new entertainment centers at furniture stores for a nice entertainment center to hold a large tv and the price was around $2000. I looked around online and found a couple of websites of handmade entertainment centers and decided to give it a try. I had never made anything remotely his large or detailed, but with the plans and some patience, I was able to bring this thing to life. I couldn't have done it without the help of this website or jrlwoodworking. I am very proud of this piece of furniture and plan to cherish it for a long time....
Sat, 06/01/2013 - 19:21
Hi RAZORBACKFAN, I am so excited to see this build from our plans at jrlwoodworking.com! This is absolutely beautiful. It looks like a very difficult project, but with the step by step instructions and going through it a few times, it really can be done by a handy do-it-yourselfer. I hope you enjoy yours as much as we enjoy ours. The best part of it is telling everyone you built it. Nobody would believe it unless we had the pictures to prove it.
This is my laundry room and it is about 12x10. It looked so bare with only the washer and dryer. So I thought making this a mudroom also. I live in the mountains and have snow 3 to 4 months a year. This will be perfect. I purchased an IKEA cabinet built it in and added the Ana White plans with two bays.
Base was made from recycled timber and the top was made with new pine.
The rails were made from curtain rails.
One end has wheels for easy moving.
In reply to Amazing! I love the two tone by Ana White
Thu, 09/07/2017 - 05:50
Thank you :)
Sun, 08/11/2019 - 22:41
Hi,
All of the base was made from free pallet Wood and the timber top was one line length of new timber which cost about $8 and the wheels I had in the shed and the curtain rail was a couple of dollars from Bunnings. The paint and stain I already had.
I hope this helps. 😀
Comments
Ana White Admin
Mon, 11/16/2020 - 12:31
Very beautiful!
Thanks for sharing Mark, definitely worth the extra investment!