Community Brag Posts

Seeing the plans for this, we knew what we wanted as the coffee table for our living room to go with our antique sofa and bench. We wanted a shabby chic look, so I experimented with the Minwax pickling water based stain. A few months later, I built matching Kentwood end tables.

The instructions were easy to follow and although 4x2s are not readily available in the UK, it easily translated into 95mm x 45mm treated timber.  Instead of the screws suggested in the video I used Miller Dowels so there are no screws in the build at all.  It was challenging to fit the back section but this was solved by drilling half-way through, fitting the dowel and then filling with a glue and sawdust mix.  Fortunately my wife has massive stock of upholstery material and she knocked up these cushion covers in an afternoon, which was less than the build time.  I have two English Springer spaniels and they think this is the best seat ever for a sunny day in Shropshire.

Because we were hosting Thanksgiving this year, we decided to fill our new dining room with a table that had space to fit both families. Then, we found these antique chairs on Craigslist. This table fills the room and matches the style of the chairs perfectly. We still need to refinish the cushion part of the chairs, but we loved the finish on them so much that we had Sherwin Williams match the stain on them. We also built the triple pedestal bench to match.

Thank you for your plans on the Fancy X Farmhouse Table. Those where the foundation from which I built this new table for my family. Although tweaked a little my inspiration was a direct result of the beautiful table you built. 

This thing is awesome! The access to my crawlspace was conveniently put under the dryer, but with both the washer and dryer on the pedestal I can slide it forward by myself if I need to get into the crawlspace. Bonus! I couldn't find any basecap so I used a plain old piece of trim. I also had some 1/8 inch plywood that I ripped to trim the front and sides. Very happy with how it turned out.

I made this bed frame without the headboard, I just put the same legs on all four corners. This is one sturdy frame, but watch it, when you stub your toe, the bed doesn't give!

I built this for my younger brother and his wife for their new home.

This is my very first project. This is a cross between the Rustic X console and the Tryde media console. I liked the top of the Tryde, but the ease of the Rustic X.

I painted the trim in slightly off-white, the sides, top and shelf are done in a satin polyurethane.

I was amazed at how easy this was to make following your plans. The hardest part was getting my husband to let me use the power tools (most of which I have either bought for him as gifts or I owned before we got married). He says, "I thought you were afraid of the table saw?" Only when you use it, dear!

This took a day to build, and then forever to finish (it was like waiting for paint to dry ;)

Thank you for all of the amazing plans you have on this site. You may just be my new hero Ana!

Next up, a dining room table for my daughter, then the farmhouse bed for the other daughter. With a few tools, a little patience and couple of bags of O negative blood on standby, there is nothing you can't DIY. (I kid, I hurt myself with hand tools, never power tools).

Really enjoyed making this.. Shoes used to be everywhere, and really annoyed me. Great area to store away seasonal or occasional shoes.

I'm so glad I found your blog/website. It is exactly what I was looking for. I'm going to tackle the farm table & benches next and then adjust the porch swing plan to make a bed swing for a friend. Thanks for the great ideas!

I needed a smaller table than the one I had, so I decided to build a new one. I loved the look of the Modern Farm table that was posted on this site and I just modified the plans to make it a 36" x 36" square. I finished it with a Kona stain.

My daughters decided they wanted to do a lemonade stand at their Nana's yard sale.  I'm a beginner when it comes to woodworking projects so when I came across Ana's plans for the fence picket lemonade stand, I just HAD to give it a try!  This was a fun project and the plans were extremely helpful and straight-forward.  I would definitely recommend if anyone is looking for a cute lemonade stand for their kiddos!  Side note - my girls raised $75 for the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation to help fight childhood cancer! So proud! 

We built these beds Nov/Dec 2012 for our boys ages 2 & 4. This was our first furniture project. It was fairly easy but I did learn a few things along the way. They may seams dumb to most of you, but being our first project we encountered a few problems. My #1 tip is to cut your pieces, THEN SAND THEM. Before constructing the beds. We sanded afterwards, and trying to sand in the little gaps between the slats was hard. Like other posts, we had some trouble with the ladder. The side pieces were not long enough. We just re cut them and added another "rung". The finish is Valspar's Fly By Night blue. It is a very deep navy. Although I sanded my heart out and used a whole tub of wood filler they are still made using 2x4s and have dings and nicks that just come with soft woods. Our boys love them, and no they're not perfect but I think it will work to our advantage. Now when the boys act like boys I'm not away or stressing or any little dings they might be creating to the bed.

My first woodwork project from the DIY on this website and I'm very happy with how it turned out!

For the most part I followed the plans for the legs and base structure as suggested. In our area the 2x4s are sold with rounded corners. To avoid a very obvious seam on the legs, I used 2x6s which I screwed and glued together then cut back to 3x4 (1.5x2) x 4 to make the legs and cross beams a little beefier with little or no seem on the legs. As I decided to build the top from reclaimed wood I framed in the top with 2x4 ripped down to approx.. 2x3 with a sheet of plywood to support top boards. As I don’t have a planner to level any reclaimed top boards I could find, I decided to make my own faux reclaimed boards out of ¾’ x 9’ – 8’ planks. I distress the wood using a chain, rocks my table saw, hammer, nails, blowtorch and bow saw. In hindsight, I wish I had distressed a little more vigorously but everyday use will augment it over time. I continued to paint, distress and sand on the fly, using paints I had left from previous projects. In some cases, I mixed paints to get additional colour varierty. All boards were stained at the to colour bare areas which as a bonus added a slight yellow hue making the paint look older. I did some scraping and blowtorching of semi-dry paint and stain to get a variety of looks and textures. I dry fit the boards and reorganized the puzzle pieces to get a random but organized look – controlled chaos. Once I was close I glued and screwed the board down clamping as I went to keep the boards tight. This paid-off later as the tighter seams allow less food to fall in-between. I cut down the last row from over sized pieces to get a tight fit in the last row. I finished with 11 coats of poly to toughen up the pine and again to seal the seams from food. My wife suggested painting the legs off-white as our cottage already is max-ed out on natural wood. We will follow by painting the existing chairs the same off-white and adding a little distress for age. Cost was approx. $175 to 200. The plywood alone was $45, paint I had. Time was easily 50 hours as the artistic on the top, time although fun, was time consuming.

Anna’s website is great I have had many compliments on my table. I have pointed many people to the site for direction on their own projects. Thanks for the great plans.

Sandy

My grandfather built the base for this table decades ago. I never got to know him because I was very young when he passed. I told my mom that I loved this table and she gave it to me under the condition that we split it into two pieces. I get the base and she gets the top. That way I can build 2 tables from this and we can both keep the memory.

I made a new table top from Brazilian Mahogany and painted the base that was made from pine. Soon I will be making a new base to attach to the old table top and send it to my mother.

Minwax Antique Oil Finish is awesome. I have trouble with finishing and this worked like a dream. No stain was used.