Community Brag Posts

I built this bed for my daughter. I used the Hailey Bed plans. It wasn't hard and got it done rather inexpensively.

Needed a less massive entertainment center for my itsy bitsy living room.This plan was perfect we shrunk it down a bit width wise. Easy to build only took us a day to build and me a couple of weekends to paint! LOVE

Followed instructions and became a fun day project using primarily 1x2's, Kregs jig and glue. Hardest part of this project was keeping our daughter out of Santa's workshop. Thanks to a previous brag post, I used wood shims as an idea for a roof and added the raffia to give Santa hero powers on Christmas morning.  Wood/shims were purchaed at HD; stain, hinges and clasps from a Re-store; raffia from a craft store.  All in probably cost around $40 total with wood and shims being $30 of that.  Note: if you decide to shingle using glue, plan for a LOT of shims and a full bottle of glue if not more. I cut the shims in half to give me double the amount for use. 

Stain/finish and shingles added 2 extra days to this project.

My IG Builders Challenge 2016 Piece

First piece I have ever build by myself.  I decided to go with a vintage travel theme.  Drawers were decoupaged with old map look wrapping paper and then distressed a bit.  Suitcase handles painted and distressed serve as the drawer pulls.  I even rusted up the metal on them...including the tiny screws!  For the top, I decided to beat up the wood with hammer, chains, etc. and then stain in dark walnut.  On each corner of the top I placed metal brackets which I also soaked in a vinegar rust solution to age them and then attached using some decorative upholstery tacks.  For the body, I decided to go with American Paint Company paint.  It's thick and easy to create lots of texture.  I layered two colors...Beach Glass as the base coat and Home Plate on top.  In order to achieve an aged, parchment paper type look, I used dark wax.  The dark wax sinks into all the yummy texture creating the look I wanted to get.  Additionally, I stenciled the words:  Explore Dream Discover across the bottom. 

This was for our mudroom, obviously. I wanted to use up some ply that I had ill-advisedly had the store cut into quarters, so each of my storage compartments are 48" long, supported in the center by that divider piece you see in the second pic.

The beauty of DIY of course, is that you can modify everything. But if you do, you spend a week on a 4-hour project (but you do use up a lot of scraps). I cut nearly every piece out of plywood with the exception of the 1x3 front legs. It was time-consuming, but I think it was worth it as it allowed me to impulsively deepen the storage from 3.5" to 5". It also meant I only had to purchase the cedar, one pine 1x3, and a hinge.

The top is bare cedar boards which we'll allow to weather naturally. The hinge is the longest piano hinge they had at the blue store at about $7. The white is just a base Behr ultra with no tint because it's classic and we already had it.

This TV stand was built from the plans of the Planked wood sideboard. I made it a bit shorter only 6ft and made shelving in the middle instead of another storage space. Each side has a shelf in the middle and we store DVDs in them along with some of our childrens puzzels and games. I stained it Walnut and love the look of the rough wood. All of our guest cant believe that its homemade and not purchased from a store. 

My dad wanted to make something for my husband and my first dog.  When I saw this crate I shared it with my dad.  He was on board and did a great job!

Absolutely love my new shoe cabinet! Saw the original plan on Pinterest in distressed black. Downloaded and asked hubby if he would build this for me and he did! I finished it with Colonial White oil base paint and distressed it with sand paper, hammer, steel wool and paint spatters.

One of the coolest features .... the knobs which are wooden thread spools cut in half.

The cabinet holds 11 pair of shoes and 3 pair of short boots.

Finished with walnut stain and Million Dollar Red. Wood is all reclaimed from local deconstruction company.

I built this bed in about a week.  It was a big project but very rewarding. The plans I had from Ana White were easy to follow and detailed, and having the shopping list and cut list was very helpful.  It was pretty straightforward with mostly right angles.  It may be a bit much for a beginner, but someone with some basic woodworking and building skills should have no trouble.  It’s very heavy and needs to be assembled in pieces.  The roof shingles were made by using 1/4 plywood cut into rectangular squares and painted black and stapled on.  It was a nice touch. The pergola was also a nice addition, as was the staircase with bookcase.  I bought a remnant from a carpet store for 10 and tacked it in the stairs and it’s very comfortable. The drawers were a lot of work but again worth it.  Our now 4 year old is in love with her bed! 

My 7 year old nephew, Jack loves the San Francisco Giants, so my brother and I decided to create an AT & T Park bed using Ana's Camp Loft Bed plans as a guide. I started with the scoreboard to hang above the bed. The teams are all hand painted and hung with Velcro so Jack can arrange the teams according to their current league standings. He can also decide who he wants to play and change the teams on the actual scoreboard, which is painted with chalkboard paint.

The bed was created using Ana's plans. We added brick facade columns to make it look more like AT & T Park. The columns have shelves in the back built in for storage. I found some great Giants stickers and added them as well.

Under the bed, I built a locker using Ana's Small Locker Cabinet plans for Jack to hang and store all of his athletic gear.

This was a collective project that involved my Husband, son and I. We built two of these and modified the bed by going away with the footboards being that these beds were for our teenage sons. We also had to cut the wood for the headboards to 37 1/2" in order to make them fit with the split ring hangers. They LOVE their new beds! And so do we! They are so cool! 

I built these shelves with my husband while super pregnant out of scraps I had leftover from the Dream Dollhouse and painted them with some leftover paint from another project. We used a finish nail gun and they went together really quickly.

If I was going to do it again I would skip the top rail. It makes big books more likely the lean out over the edge unless you keep if full.

I had an empty space in my Mudroom so I decided to build an armoire (fancy name for cabinet) to store the vacuum and some other items.

Check out my blog for more details:

http://www.woodworkingfourdummies.com/blog/armoire-diy

thanks,

Ian

We just moved into a Victorian farmhouse, circa 1875. The kitchen is being remodeled to include a 6 foot island and we needed some stools for it. So I plan to make either three or five more and finish them in flat black paint with satin poly to seal. Pretty quick and easy build and I think I'll change the back rest slightly on each one, just for fun!