Community Brag Posts

Large Banquette Bench with Storage (12’x7’)

We needed a big sturdy table for 8-12 persons for our big dinning room but didn't want to pay 3000$ for it. Then i found Ana-white's site and thought "why not!". It's my first project, i started whit the bench and then made the table. All buy myself, my husby doesn't even know how to use a saw. He help me carry it inside thought ;) The plans were realy easy to follow. Somebody stop me, i'm refurnishing my hole house, i can't stop! In 2 months i'v made 2 dinning tables, 2 patio tables, 1 coffe table, 5 benches. So if i can do it, you can too!

This was my first attempt after finding the site. I was so happy with the ease of the plans and the way it turned out i made the dining table

This was my first furniture project, and I modified these plans slightly to get 2 drawers, as well as a smaller depth of the desk.  I took this photo before I added drawer pulls, but I love how it turned out!

This dollhouse was super easy to make! Harper (the doll) wanted an open concept living/kitchen, and that is the first floor. Second floor are the bedroom and bathroom. Top floor is the closet. The roof is made from 3.5" slats of luan glued together and painted with black sanded paint. Notice the baseboards and crown molding? The window boxes are really cute, too! I still owe my granddaughter a garage and patio with pergola, and kitchen appliances and chairs, but that will wait until summer when she can help craft/build them. 

Harper's bed is modeled after the farmhouse bed plans available on this site, but I used smaller scrap lumber. I wanted milk paint but was unwilling to pay the high price, so I bought a sample jar of antique ivory paint and watered it down. It turned out great!

Built the buffet and doors in one day...spent two days making the hardware....1" flat bar (1/8" for mounting wheels and 3/16" for track). For the wheels I used screen door sliding wheels.. materials for sliding hardware totaled $30. Barnwood was obtained from a CL guy tearing his barn. Donated this buffet to my local high school Booster club for their auction. 

This was our first furniture project together. It was not as simple as we thought it would be, but we are very pleased with how it came out. We are planning on making the sofa table to match next!

I made the worm composter from Ana's plan and built a cabinet out of old pallets. The stack of worm composters drawers slide in and out of the cabinet on a heavy duty drawer glide set. I used cedar fence board. For 3 bucks a board, it was worth the work to rip them down and sand them. The bottom drawer has a tray built out of old flashing and slopes towards a hose bib in order to collect the worm tea. I designed the drawer insert out of cardboard and cut it out of flashing, using a pop rivet gun to put it together, sealing the seams with flashing caulking. The drawer has a sheet of aluminum window screen under the top square of cedar.

Wanted to make a loft bed for my 4-year-old son's room that could accommodate a toddler bed beneath it for when my 1-year-old daughter eventually starts sleeping on her own. I was torn between the Chelsea and Cabin bed plans, but eventually settled on the Chelsea because I liked the look of the headboard better.

I looked through all the brag posts to get modification ideas. I ended up mostly stealing ideas from "chadwickstafin", and like him took the great idea from "groovymom2000" to use chalkboard paint (though I only used it to paint the side of the desk end, since I knew the bookshelf end would be mostly blocked by a ladder). I decided to skip the decorative feet and just extend my 2x2s to the floor for extra strength, a mod that most people appear to be doing with this plan. I saw some people using 2x3s in place of 2x2s for added strength, but I can confirm that 2x2s are plenty strong enough on their own (2x2s are stronger than people give them credit for, and there's 8 of them here to distribute the load).

Like chadwickstafin, I cut my headboard a little differently, and I used short lengths of scrap 2x2s cut at 45-degrees to brace the top and bottom corners of both end units. There is no wiggle to the bed at all, it's stabilized so well. I also added a middle support to the short rail, just for a little extra safety, and secured the inside ends of the railings to the headboard/footer with pocket screws. I skipped the filler pieces for the railing, and just did a little extra sanding to make sure all exposed corners were smooth and splinter-free. I made the opening to the bed a bit wider than the plans, 15" instead of 13". I used 2x3s for the ladder, which gave me the sturdiness I wanted without the full bulk of using 2x4s, which looked especially chunky next to a loft unit made with mostly 1x boards. I played with some different angles, but eventually went with a 15-degree ladder. There were some leftover plastic handles sitting in my garage (originally from an outdoor playset ladder before I replaced it with a climbing wall), so I added those near the top of the ladder for some extra safety. I put some color-changing strip lighting under the bed, so there would be plenty of light for the desk and bookshelves (my little guy loves to just plop down on the ground beneath his bed and read).

I spaced the 1x3 slats about 3.5" apart (used scrap 2x4 blocks as spacers). Because my wife or I will lay in bed and read to our son at night, I easily added a couple 2x2 support rails under the 1x3 slats for extra mattress support. I'm a big dude at 6'3 and 250 lbs, and the slats alone WERE strong enough to hold me when I did a test, but they bowed just enough in the center (unnoticeable to me up on the mattress, but I had my wife watching the slats for me below) that I felt I should add a bit more support. Now there's no bowing at all.

I also used Ana's Top Bunk Organizer plans to give my son a little extra storage up top (and a place to set a glass of water during the night), and painted it to match the bed's color scheme. Everything was sanded, painted, sanded again, repainted, and then given a couple coats of polycrylic (the painting process took longer than the cutting & assembly!).

Cost-wise I was extraordinarily lucky. We have a Habitat For Humanity ReStore near us, so I was able to get my paints and a 3x6 sheet of MDF for $15 total. I also had some rebate cards from Menards (regional hardware store, similar to Lowes or Home Depot), plus happened to go there on a week when pine wood was on sale, so I got all my lumber for less than $60.

I could not be happier with the end results, and my son absolutely loves his new bed.

We are in desperate need of toy storage in our playroom. We are planning to build several more of these bulk bins.

I followed a killer bee plan for a rustic cooler that I found on your site. tweaked it a little and I'm still adding to the décor on the outside