Community Brag Posts

Thank you for sharing such a neat project plan! I threw this together with some pallet wood that I stripped a few weeks ago. Quick work with the mitre saw, brad nailed it, a quick sand, threw on some stain with a rag, and freehanded the rest. Not real good on the letters but it worked. This was a Mother's Day gift for my wife. She loves red birds. She was in love with this when she saw it!!!! I think I got some brownie points! :)

Gary G.
Athens AL

I was really excited when I saw this plan. I needed a side table for my guest bedroom and these are perfect. The plans were very easy to follow - the only thing I did differently was I left off the angle braces. The hardest part of the project was waiting on the paint to dry. I've done a few other projects but this my best work so far...I'm getting better and better with each build. So excited to start something else...

This projected started with a mishap. I bought table legs from Lowes that were 35" tall, and after trying to decide if I could somehow make our chairs taller...I returned them for the correct set. The set I used was from Waddell online (the manufacturer). 29" Country Pine legs. With shipping these were the most expensive part of the entire project. The rest went according to plan. Once the table was done I decided on a whim to make a matching bench. I bought the bench legs from Home Depot and a bit more pine for the seat. The bench legs were 15" country pine also. I guessed on the measurements for it, and it came out okay. The only hard part was that my drill didn't fit with the Kreg bit on it when I was trying to screw in the bench supports. I actually had to borrow a shorter drill and bit from a friend to complete it! The staining took me a long time because I don't have a heated garage and the temperatures dropped below comfortable to work on it.

I attempted my first homemade skateboard, this was a present for my 7 year old nephew for Christmas. The deck was made out of Birch veneer, maple is also very common material to use. More details and photos on my blog if interested: http://www.woodworkingfourdummies.com/blog/diy-skateboard Cheers, Ian

My grandmother has been in terrible need of a new mailbox. The one she had was original to the house, 1972, I believe. Needless to say it was falling apart.
My stepdad and I built this for her, and my sister painted on the name adn address.
All better now!

PS, I chose Grace's Mailbox plan because you have to choose a plan when posting a brag blog and we didn't use one, we just kind of winged it.

This apothecary console table was designed to primarily hide my wife's big all-in-one printer in the bottom section. the middle section are two doors that open up like French doors and have a large section for the printer to sit in. The printer is also on one of those drawer slider platforms. The far sides each have two drawers and directly below them are 2 cabinets for more storage. Even though this looks like individual drawers there are none. 

The bulk of the cabinet is made from a combo of plywood and solid wood. The top is walnut we were given and was from my wife's grandfather' attic. It was glued and clamped together and then distressed around the edges to make it look more rustic.

Once the basic design was set, I painted the bottom white and then sanded and distressed the edges. If there were sections that needed more distressing I would add stain to the exposed wood to make it more distinct. 

I used a basic design from a popular home furnishings website and then used ideas from here to help fine tune how I wanted it to look. We are using this piece on the wall underneath our stairs to our 2nd floor and holds kids books, magazines, our printer of course, and other odds and ends we want to hide when we have company over.

I wanted to post our photo since when I was in my designing mode I used ideas I saw here to help inspire and direct my dimensions and ideas. 

I wanted a Daybed so I could relax outside and read. I found this bed plan on Ana's site. My hubby helped me a lot (I had no wood working experience).  I ended up staining and putting on Spar to protect from there Texas sun.  I use a blowup camping mattress and twin bed mosquito canopy netting!

Love love, my bed. 

Thanks Ana! 

Jewels 

Took the Rhyan side table plans an modified to add a round top. Also made a rectanglar table based on the same style construction

This table was made for a friend who has three kids and babysits kids at her house. She says she can fit eight kids on it at one time! I followed Ana's plan for the bigger kids picnic table as closely as I could using the dimensions of the wood that I had. In this table local hickory for the tops and poplar for the legs were used. I had to recruit my older brother's help in building this one because I'm pregnant and needed his help in manipulating the larger boards and painting it. Thanks big bro!

My first project. I made some mistakes, but was able to make it work, by adding some trim on top and 2 supports under the breadboard ends.

Built this for my son's apartment. Great design!

I stumbled across this site on accident one day in need of a dining room table. After hunting desperately for weeks, my wife and I couldn't find one we liked for under 1200 dollars. So, I had this great idea to build one myself. I figured if it didn't turn out I would just stick it on the deck and use it as a patio table.

I looked at the dozens of table plans on this site and picked things i liked from each and finally came up with the end product you see in the picture.

I used all pine, and found pre-turned legs at a local big box home improvement store. Total wood investment was about 200 dollars, half of that being the turned down legs.

Came out much better than I thought, and the wife was please.

Thanks to the users for all their amazing photos and directions! They came in handy!

My wife is already asking me to build more!

My friend's daughter's both love American Girl Dolls. I have made them the bunk beds and the Farmhouse bed. But they really wanted a couch. I made them one using some of the elements from the Farmhouse Bed. I used a blue paint with a pickling whitewash stain on top.

I did have a hard time getting a good photo of the finished project.

I built this table with cedar and used Cabots Australian Timber Oil hoping it would last a long time on my patio. After 1 summer, it still looks great! I made slight modifications for a comfortable height with the chairs I bought and also simplified the rounded cuts to a 45 degree cut on the bottom. Using glue and screws during assembly made the table solid.

I stumbled upon the Ana White website (and subsequently the farmhouse bed plans) via something I saw on Pinterest. I had been bugging my husband for bedroom furniture for years, but there were always other bills to pay. So when I came accross that BEAUTIFUL and super-inexpensive-to-build bed, you can imagine my excitement! I sent a link to my husband, who was equally excited, and a few days later we have this georgeous new bed!

Built of these bedside tables using Ana's book. The plan was very clear to understand and the cut and supplies list took a lot the guess work out of the project. Instead of using a circular saw I used a portable Dewalt table saw. This worked extremely well, especially for cutting pieces of MDF. It is worth noting that you DO NOT want to make large cross cuts using your table saw fence. I learned the hard way with ONLY a bruised hand (and ego). Once I removed the fence from my saw the second table was built much faster and I felt safer doing it.

The only other snag in the build was not being able to find the "1x16x72" MDF. Instead I purchased a 2'x4' section for $8. I planned on painted the tables all along so the MDF was perfect. If you were going to stain the tables you would want to use some sort of hardwood (I used pine everywhere else) on the top, sides, and bottom.

Both tables were finished in a weekend (took about 3 hours each) and I spent the following weekend priming, painting, and installing the drawer slides and hardware. I would highly recommend these tables for anyone looking to get a high quality bedside table at a fraction of the cost. Thanks Ana for the plan and I look forward to my next build.

Made these for my children at Christmas.  Feedback was very positive so I made one to post on Etsy to see what kind of market there is for these.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/269080897/large-porch-bench