Community Brag Posts

I built this for an odd-sized print. I used 1x3 on the interior frame, and 1x2 on the border frame. I really like the rustic look of it, and it came together really quickly.

We wanted to replace the vented / painted bi-fold closet doors in our Master Suite with something that was warmer and more consistent with the decorating motif of the house.  We priced out various wood bi-fold doors and were shocked at the $350 - $600 price range of what was available.   We decided that building them ourselves was a much better choice.

The frames are made from 1” Knotty Pine and the panels are from ¼” Knotty Pine.   Frames were made to fit and assembled w/ Kreg screws & Glue.  Rabbet channels were cut w/ the router and the panels were brad nailed & glued.

It was finished w/ the same stain used on our Knotty Pine ceilings / walls and finished w/ a satin varnish for a perfect match to our house.

This was a very straightforward, quick & inexpensive alternative to purchasing expensive bi-fold doors.   

The doors took about 15 hours to build / sand and 10 hours to finish.   Total cost was around $100. 

I was asked to build a crib by a family member for their first baby.  What an honor.  The first place that I sought ideas was Ana-White!  Of course!  

It turned out great!  Thanks for the ideas.

We built three 12-foot shelves to span the entire width of a wall in our play room. Each shelf cost approximately $30, mainly because we had to purchase a higher grade wood to get 12-foot pieces that were reasonably straight. I haven't filled the screw holes with wood filler yet.

Because these are child-height and we have a little climber on our hands, we screwed the shelves into every stud along the wall, and used more screws throughout than we would have for simple display shelves.

This was my first project and I did most of the work myself, with my husband's assistance when extra hands were necessary. It turned out so well I plan on tackling a few more Ana White projects! :)

I took the plans for the narrow farmhouse table and modified them for a pocket hole jig and shortened it down to 6 feet. This was a surprisingly fast build. My husband and I only had about 45 minutes a day to work on it and we still finished it in about a week. More information on the blog post (coming soon!)

Took the plans and made this unit about 7 1/2 ft long and 37 tall. I stalked casters on bottom for easy moving. I did the doors and top with black tea and the vinegar and steel wool method. Made the hardware and the total came to $159.00. Purchased all materials at lowes and my Military discount saved me 10%! Thank you for the inspiration!!!

Jeff M     Brownstown,Mi

We wanted a round table that would seat a full Monopoly game. To do this we needed about a 5' diameter tabletop.  The base was made consistent with the plans.  

A few tips on the base:

1. Get your angles as close to 45° as you can.  Otherwise, there will be much sanding and puttying in your future.  
2. If you want to hide your lag screw like I did, I used a spade bit to recess an area for the screw head.  Then I glued in a plug made from dowel and sanded flush.  

If you want to make a round tabletop, here is what I did (there may be better methods).  Keep in mind this was for a ~60" diameter table, I was assuming that the perimeter arc pieces would be about 4.5" wide and that I would cut the inner circle at a 50" diameter.

1. Picture 1 - I built two 5' slabs of (7) 2x4s pocket-holed together.  
2. Picture 2 - Then I cut two pieces from each slab that would later make up the 90° "pie slice" pieces.  Make sure to remove the screws that will be in the way your saw blade. Also, you just have to concern yourself with the angle since the radius will be dealt with later.  There is a lot of wood waste with this method, but I think it avoided headaches. 
3. Picture 3 - I assembled (screwed and glued) the "pie pieces"to the cross pieces. The length of the cross pieces don't matter much since they will also be to cut to a specified radius.  Since I would be cutting a 50" diameter circle, the large cross piece had to be at least 50" and the two small pieces had to be at least 22.25" (subtracting the 2x6 width).  
   1. Picture 3 - I mounted my router to a piece of MDF and drilled a hole at the necessary distance to cut a 50" diameter circle. This distance is 25" + half of the bit diameter.  Since I used a 1/2" straight bit, my point was 25.25" from the center of the router bit.  I screwed this jig to the center of the tabletop assembly so the router could pivot and cut a circle.  As for logistics, I rested this assembly on some scrap wood and kneeled on the tabletop as I was cutting it.  It took a large number of passes with the router since I was cutting through 1.5" of material. 
4. Picture 4 - The perimeter pieces required some time and geometry. I found that I would need (8) 23" 2x8 pieces (the 23" is approximate because I was a little off for some reason, though I can't recall why).  From those pieces, I used the same router jig to cut the perimeter arc pieces. You will need to make two new radius holes in teh jig to accomplish what you need.  To cut the inner arc you need a hole set at 25" - half of the bit diameter (24.75" for me).  To cut the outer arc, I used a hole that was 29 5/8" from the center of the router bit.  You may need to do some fine tuning to these pieces to get them to fit correctly, but for me it pretty minor.  I trimmed a couple pieces with a miter saw but that was it. 
5. The rest is screws and glue. 

I was inspired by your project.  Having looked everywhere for a solid wood toy chest that looked good also as a furniture piece.  I built this out of solid popular.  I added legs and vintage caster wheels.  I also added a addition divider in the bottom middle compartment (over bought slightly on popular).  For the top front rail I used a wider rail to hold more toys.  I bought also square bins on top for extra toy storage (found on sale for 2.99 each).  I used trim screws to secure entire chest because I noticed using nails it was not as sturdy.  Trim screws have small heads and if they are counter sunken they can easily be fillered.  Used primer plus paint all in one to coat toy storage after giving it a good sanding.  I also added cup pulls on both ends for easy moving with the wheels.  Overall project cost a lot because of solid wood, screws, paint, etc.  could make a great bin for storage of potatoes, onions, and etc if one where to use food grade paint.

We built the camp loft bed for our 5 year old sons birthday. He wanted a firefighter bed, but we wanted something that would be a little more "flexible" for his room. The camp bed was perfect for him! The stairs were too deep for the room configuration, so we did not include the stairs, and instead purchased a sturdy stepstool from IKEA to match the bed. The double bonus is that when we read to him a night we can move the step stool and stand on it while we read the story! I made the firefighter station curtain/tent and attached it with a tension rod. We also constructed a large toy box on wheels to slide underneath the platform for his big toys like race tracks, etc. The bed is very sturdy, the set up is perfect for his small room, and he loves it. The bed was very easy to construct.

Scaled it down for 12" dolls, rather than 18" dolls

This is our 20-year-old bathroom vanity, retrofitted to resemble the Napoleon Sink Console. This old cabinet is the standard builder size from the 90’s -- 30” wide x 29 ½” tall x 21” deep – fits a 31” x 22” sink top. The 2 outside drawers are working drawers, and the 2 inside are faux (just fronts). It was a weekend project. Since the sink stayed in place, I had to figure out something for the drawers to slide on. I had 3 sticks of ¾” x ¾” S4S in the garage, so I used these and fashioned a frame to hold the drawers, and also used it on the sides of the drawers as slides (figured the frame out as I went along). I used up some scrap 1x12 to cut the drawer faces and supports at the inside back of the cabinet. Since the space was so tight, I used some scrap 1x2 as bracing attached to the original frame, and attached the added face frame to that. The doors are ½” x 1 ½” craft board and ¼” birch plywood. The drawers are 3/8” x 3 ½” craft board with some ¼” plywood on the bottoms. I re-used the existing hinges and used some knobs from a multi-pack (available from Target) and some left over paint that was on hand. I bought about $30 of materials in addition to my scraps.
Now that I’ve got this one under my belt, it’ll be easier to do this in the other 2 bathrooms. I’ll probably use some 1x2’s instead of the s4s if I have to go out and buy the materials for the next one, it’ll just have slightly different measurements.

This was a quick build just in time for Christmas. The hardest part, as in most cases, was cutting and attaching the trim. Still have some sanding and painting to do.

Really took one afternoon to cut and assemble. Couple more hours to sand, and then 2 days to stain and allow for dry time between coats. Very cool table