Community Brag Posts

Inspired by the Farm House table plans. I scored a bunch of old reclaimed barn wood from a friend of mine and decided it would make a perfect table top. I finished our basement and we moved our living room downstairs as planned. Which left us with a very large and very vacant room in the front of our house (14' x 21'). We had always planed to turn this into our dining room when the basement was done since we have no other formal dining space in the house. So this was the first piece of many to be build and placed in the room.

The table is 9ft long and the top is 7/4 thick oak floor boards. I took them down to a local cabinet shop and they jointed the edges, planed the top and bottom, glued them up and cut them down to 9ft (started at 12') for $50. Best $50 ever spent. I live close to Amish country so there are a lot of wood suppliers locally, I found a guy who sells stairway newels and all kinds of posts at super low costs. I picked up all for of my legs for $10 a piece. The exact same post was $33 at my Menards. I just trimmed them up to size and was good to go. I had the same cabinet shop mill the lumber for the aprons and stretcher as well. Its all 1" thick maple with a nice little rabbit cut in the long aprons to act as a ledge for my cross supports. To finish up the legs I added some 4" baseboard to thicken up the look of the bottom legs.

I'm super pleased with how it turned out and so is my wife, which is all that really matters anyway. Next up, entry way bench, 8 Parsons chairs and a steel pipe buffet...

Super easy! I love it!

I made this computer desk with just an idea and a picture of my aunt's compter desk I loved! In her desk the middle section goes clear to the floor, but I wanted room for my legs. Her's also was wicker shelves on the bottom sides so I found a general cabinet plan and of course altered that. This was made in 5 separate pieces and put together!
The other picture is the desk in progress and the second pic is the desk I was kinda copying/altering.

Pleas excuse the mess in the pictures. It is too cold to work in the garage up here in the northwest, so this project took over our entire kitchen and dining room. We built these frame and panel-style doors using Ana's plans from the mom-plex bathroom vanity! We are so excited because we spent about $100 including paint and have plenty of leftover materials for the drawers next week!

These are the original cabinets in our 75 year old house and they were in serious need of rehab. We even contemplated ripping them out and using Ana's cabinet plans to build new ones but after we removed the shelves, the carcass of the cabinets were still in good shape. We filled, sanded, painted and built these new amazing doors that I'm seriously losing my mind over. They are so beautiful and I don't think I could have ordered something better. Maybe better made but how sweet is it to save all that money by building them yourselves?

We'll post drawer pictures after we get those finished up and hopefully have a clean kitchen at that point. :)

Thanks Ana! Our home is becoming truly special with the skills we learned from you!

A friend and I built the mobile miter saw stand from your plans. We live in a retirement community and use the saw in our woodworking shop.

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. :)

This bed frame was my first project. There are some mistakes, but overall, I love the way it turned out. I combined two plans: "Mom's fancy farmhouse bedframe" and the storage bed.

I love the look of wood and would have loved to stain this project. However, this project was painted due to the fact that I repurposed Ikea bookshelves for the two side pieces. The pieces I built were the headboard, bottom storage bench, and the drawers. 

There are a couple of things I learned during this project. 

1. Measure, remeasure and if you're building pieces like drawers to fit your frame, measure just one more time. I did not plan to frame the bottom storage box I built, so when I made measurements for my drawers, it was for the frameless box. I, however, changed my mind and ended up framing the box and cutting the drawers. I put them together and checked to see if they fit and ooops.....they don't because I added frames. So, lessoned learned was to double check before I make cuts especially since I made measurements at the beginning of my project. 

    1A. I also ended up going off the measurements for the "farmhouse bed frame" for the headboard and didn't match my calculations for the storage bed frame to match. So, the headboard ended up being wider than intended and it sticks out. I did not end up rebuilding the headboard or the bedframe since I thought it would be too much work.

2. Making drawers did not agree with me. I seriously had to redo my first drawer four times due to my mismeasuring or calculating. After everything clicked, the rest of the drawers were a breeze.

3. The drawers I made with 1/2 plywood. Looking back, I would have made them with 3/4 plywood. I also would have made the drawers shorter so I could have built the faces of the drawers using Ana-white's drawer face plans (they seem so much easier!).

4. The drawer faces were made with 45 degree cuts to add more interest vs the straight pieces of wood. I'll admit, this was my husband's idea and I LOVE it. However, getting the pieces just right weren't the easiest thing (and they aren't perfect, but it's our first project and it's good enough). It made painting the bevel a little more difficult too.  So, if I were to do this again, I would have made the drawers shorter, used 1/2 ply for the face and glue the frame on the 1/2 ply to attach to the drawer.

5. The finishing part took the longest. I used Glidden semi-gloss white paint off the shelf. I actually used old paint that the previous owner of my house left. I would NOT use old paint again. The paint must have been at least 3 years old and I thought I mixed it well, but it seems like there's some yellow in the paint. I'm guessing I didn't mix it well enough.

I added support for more weight by adding a 2x4 on the inside of the four legs. This way, I have the entire frame supported by screws AND 2x4, so I can rest easy.

Hi
I am still working on my portico furnitures..but as we have changed the colour of our Home, I have decided to change the colour of sofa ( terrible decision) and than to build the adirondack chair for Home depot of Ana to be part of the ensemble.
Thanks Ana. I love it.
I used the same project just changing two small things ( a small support under the arms and making the arms more similar to the original adirondack chair. I used the oxydizing solution to paint and it is a great stuff!
ciao patty
p.s. I already posted the sofa is always Ana's project.

First furniture project, first Kreg jig use.

Heavily adapted storage sofa plans.  Used existing day bed mattresses.  Made all wood surfaces finished with nice cladding, and all fabric portions removable and washable.

Added arms, and a back ledge.  Ledge is hinged to allow access to wall behind so I can get to the outlets.

Lots of work, but it is AWESOME.  Thanks for the inspiration Ana!

I built this outdoor sofa out of Blackwood. I tweaked Ana's plan to include a backrest and a support in the front, as my planks are only 23mm thick.

We needed extra seating for friends to come over for football game days, so I took the outdoor chair plans and decided to use it for a den chair. Simple build, but I did add some 1x3 boards on the rails for more comfortable armrests. Add some appropriate color cushions and it's ready for football season! Quick assembly, but as usual, staining and clear-coating took the bulk of the time spent.