Community Brag Posts

This was my first build. I followed Ana's plans. I used Eastern White Pine and applied a pre-stain because pine almost never stains evenly.

I finished the project with a white wash and then a quick water based stain that I wiped off almost immediately. I ended up with a pale tan/grey color with a very subtle peachy color that peeks through in a few places. It doesn't show in the photo very well, but the colors gave me a lot of depth without a ton of wood grain showing.

I made this table in one weekend with my 11 year old son. I was able to teach him how to use the Kreg jig and how to safely use the miter saw. It was a great bonding experience. And, on Monday it was so nice that all of his teachers at school were so impressed by his ability to make such a beautiful piece of furniture.  We had seen similar custom-built tables for $2,000 and we made this for less than $150.  Thank you so much for the plans and your site.

Katrina O'Con

Natchitoches, Louisiana

Now I know that this isn't exactly a build. It's more of an added trim but I thought I'd post it just in case any of you also have a black hole under your couch that swallows up pet fur and kids toys by the pound not to mention the tv remote on a daily basis! I was tired of moving the entire sectional ALL the time to find missing toys and vacuum dust bunnies so...I sanded, painted and attached some 1x2s just in front of the legs of the sectional. They come down to about 1/8" from the floor stopping almost everything from sliding under but still letting the couch rest on its legs. Cheap and easy! 

Farmhouse bed in king, and painted teal.

This was a very easy and fun project. I made mine out of fence pickets and I think the weathered look of the wood is perfect for these ledges. I plan to do a lot more projects from Ana's plans. The directions couldn't be easier to follow.

Office cabinet with shelf.  Made only from 1 by 4s and plywood for shelves (and feet).

Finished in Varathane Carrington and Matte Poly.

The plywood inserts in the doors are from the same piece.  Both were treated with pre stain and the same stain but have turned out totally different shades.  I might at some point make new doors (perhaps 2 thinner doors per side) but will live with the difference for now.  I guess this is one of the things about hand made - two pieces will never look exactly the same.

Found Ana's plans online and can easily say, longest part of the process was watching paint dry! Very easy and simple build--looking forward to lounging here all summer long. 

My husband and I built this as a memorial bench for a friend of a friend that , lost a child to a car accident last year. Hopefully it will give her a peaceful spot to sit in her garden. Thanks for the plans and support!

My husband modified the plans for the rustic X end tables to make a slightly smaller version for our living room.  Instead of 2x6s he used 1x6s on the top.  Instead of 2x4s he used 2x2s for the X and the legs.  I am really excited about how they turned out!  Thanks for all the great ideas Ana; they are inspiring!!

Shed

My new fav stain. Minwax Expresso Polyshades in satin.
Followed the 2x4 desk design but had so many scrap pieces of 2x4 (from other projects) , ended up changing the direction of the table top.
Finished with Minwax gray and even though it looks blue , I like it...
Going to make some benches to match , weather pèrmitting :)
Didn't take long to build , just a couple of hours - staining was the killer. Needed 3 coats to get that rich dark even look.

I worked on this project a few hours a day, I made the cuts one day and then drilled the pocket holes and assembled the table. The difference for the table and the original plans was I did not use the turned legs from the plans. I used non treated 4x4's. Longest time was waiting between stain and poly to dry. I love being able to get find these plans on Ana's site! Thank you Ana.

Built with 2x4 and 2x6.  Simple stain brushed on with a sponge and let stand a few minutes and wipe off.  

Project assembled with pocket holes.

This was a pretty simply bed to make and would have only probably taken half a day to build if we were more familiar with building furniture from scratch. Instead of using the pocket-hole screws we just used countersink screws as suggested in one of the comments of this tutorial and that work great. We just filling the holes afterwards before painting. For more tips and advice from what we learned from building this bed you can check out my blog post on the bed http://www.stripesandpolkadotsblog.com/take-back-tuesday-diy-platform-b…

I've been looking at this project for 2-3 years. After spending a lot of time in the lumber store looking at 1x boards for planks (and not finding any that I was very happy with), I walked by the plywood section and saw a really nice looking piece of plywood made by the Araucoply company. Not only did it look better than the plank boards I found on my visit, it was 1/2 the price of the board I was looking at. I live in Fairbanks, Alaska and it only cost $29 for an 8' sheet of Aruacoply. I brought it home and ripped it with my circular saw, using a homemade rip guide. I made the table 2' wide by 8' long and stained it with ebony stain. I spent the next two weeks cutting stencils and painting the table top. Once it was covered with some of my favorite quotes, poems, lyrics, and graphics, I sealed everything with three coats of semi-gloss polyurethane. I blurred out poems written by my kids in the photo attached to this post. 

I built the base in about two hours and stained the legs with a light blue Varathane stain that was on discount at the local box store because the can was dented. If I hadn't spent so much time stenciling, I could have easily been done with the whole thing in no more than 2.5 hours.