Community Brag Posts

We took the loft bed plans and modified a bit for our daughters bed. We made it a little taller including the doorway. Instead of a ladder we did a set of carpeted stairs with entry to the underneath space through a door on the inside and added a light for a 'secret' hideout. Everything else were just some added features. We built flower boxes and added foam blocks with silk flowers. For the gable we used bead board. For the shutter we used small wood strips and the horizontal pieces are just the free paint sticks from lowes cut down. We then added wired in lights hooked up to her light switch. (she loves this part) Then he built a fold down desk that can be opened or closed for when they want to play in there. The school supplies we used the rod and tin buckets from Ikea kitchen area. Over it took about 6 weeks to do everything between watching the kids and working. Cost for materials and the extras came to a little over $600. 

Built a shiplap wall with an electric fire place and mounted T. Built a custom mantel out of Birch plywood.

Jim F

Very easy chair to make. Great size for my 6 year old and 10 year old.

Learn how to take an old wine bottle and convert it into an accent light figure. Use it in your kitchen, bedroom, bar and more. With just a few tools you can be on your way to creating something cool.

The tools you will need to get started are:
Power Drill
3/8 diamond drill bit (ask your home improvement store for bits made for glass)
If you find the lights are too hard to push through, then you can drill a 1/2 inch or 5/8 drill bit.
String light (25-50 LED lights)
Rustolem Glaze finish
Wet Sponge or access to a water hose

Here are some quick steps to use.

1) The first thing you will need to do is dampen the area where the hole will be drilled. When you cut through glass, it heats up really quick so you have to cool it down with a wet sponge or run cool water over it in between drilling.

2) Start off by slowly drilling an indent into the bottle. The drill bit will wobble around but once you get the groove in there, it will anchor itself and go through smooth.

3) Drill in increments, then wipe down to cool bottle and continue drilling again. The entire process to drill the hole through the bottle took me 5-7 min. Once the hole has been drilled, wipe it down with a sponge to get any loose glass chips off the bottle.

4) Take you LED lights and push in one bulb at a time into the hole drilled in bottle. You can use a coat hanger from the top (neck) of the bottle to pull the wires up.

5) Once all the wires are in the bottle, then tape up the remaining wires on the outside and the neck. Grab your glaze and spray it on. Be sure to do this in a well ventilated area and wear a mask.

6) Once done, grab a 2 sided male extension cord from your home improvement store and plug it in and wash it glow.

Note: Although LED lights emit low heat, you may want to create some kind of ventilation for your bottle. I drilled another small 1/4 hole near the middle to allow for any built up heat to escape. You can also take a sharp tack and pierce the lid of the bottle.

To view the video tutorial please go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yvgzacdJMQ or visit http://respaceit.com and go to the "how to" section.

Let us know what you think!

I built this toy box for my nephew, who is into Tractors, using the plan provided by Ana. I made some modifications to the lid mostly, other than that the differences are cosmetic. I thought the plan was super simple and easy to use!

My first build from this fantastic site, but not last.

Son's bed (age 9) first build and he loves it! I'm pretty psyched too!

I have tried submitting this 3 times and each time it got deleted... so forgive me if this is short.

But for this table I followed the plan, only I left the legs about 7 inches longer to make the table taller. I did this because my plan was to use this in my bathroom for additional storage. Some things I will say about the project:

Make surre you get the straightest, flattest 2x2's possible. Most likely these will be furring strips, so pick them wisely. If you have access to better 2x2's or can cut your own I would suggest it. When you join them you will have little gaps because the edges are rounded, and they won't be flush. To counter-act this problem I filled them with wood filler in layers, and sanded it flush before I stained.

As for the finish I didn't stain the inside because I ran out of my mix, and I also didn't see a huge reason to because I knew I would be the only one opening the drawer. I did however seal the unstained area because it keeps the moisture content more consistent, which prevents warping. I used 3 coats of stain, keeping each on for a good amount of time. and gave a light sanding between the 1st and 2nd coats. I then applied Minwax wipe-on poly. This was VERY easy to use and I would recommend it for beginners.

The last thing you might see is the tape on the slides. This is teflon tape. I put it on the inside and the drawer, and it makes the drawer slide like glass. It makes a huge difference, and I would recommend it to anyone.

I really appreciated the build article.  I customized the sizes and used plywood for the bottom shelves.  I oxidized but painted with milk paint then sanded to distress.  I also only painted one coat to still see some grain.  I top coated with water based poly.

Using Ana White's plans, I created a coffee station where there used to be a roll top desk,,,

This was my first project. I used wainscoting for the door backing. I was happy with it for a first project.

I built this butcher block kitchen island from Ana's shepard kitchen island plans. I did however modify the dimensions and design to fit my needs.

Instead of cabinet doors I wanted an open design so I built adjustable shelves. The drawers are slightly smaller than the plans give to allow extra shelf room. I used full extension drawer slides. The plans have the total kitchen island height at 42" which I felt was a little to tall for the average person so I built this island at 37" tall. The top is an edge grain butcher block top built out of hard maple and sealed with mineral oil. http://timberandsoul.wix.com/timberandsoul#

A huge thanks to Ana, her inspirational blog, and her clear and easy-to-follow plans for convincing me that I could take on and complete this project. I had lots of fun doing it!