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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!

Here are some photos of my closet.  I used these plans as a starting place.  If you look, you will see I essentially built three units, one for each wall, and attached them using "bridges".  I added drawers with soft glide closing slides for the rich feel.  On the main hanging rods, the ones they sell in your local hardware box store and quite expensive (about $30 for an 8' length), so I bought chainlink fence bars, which cost $10 for a 10' length, and took some 0000 steel wool to them, and then polished them.  They look like chrome.  For the corners, I could not find anywhere what I wanted, which was a rod that would mimic the shelf above it, which is two 45 degree turns.  So, I bought a 10' length of 1" electric conduit, and cut it in half and then put two 45 degree bends in each piece.  I did this right in the store with their conduit bender and it took all of like 10 minutes.  Then, when I got them home, I simply cut off the ends to the exact size needed in each corner.  I used a "U" socket on each end, and a hanging loop in the middle.  Both corners cost me less than $20.  The drawer glides were on Amazon, and were $120 for 15 pairs of soft-close glides with the brackets (Get the bracets, as they are not that expensive, and will make installing these glides much much easier.  

Another money saving thing I did was the double doors.  The store does not stock double doors, and they must be special ordered, at a cost of almost $275, and would take 4-6 weeks to get.  So instead, i bought two 24" single pre-hing interior doors, and removed the frame on each one where the door would latch.  I removed both headers as well, and used one of the side for the top.  I used a spring loaded ball socket for the less used door, and installed the indent plate for the ball socket where the latch would have gone if used as a side frame for the doorknob (I hope that made sense).  Basically, I put two 24" pre-hung doors together to make one double door.  It cost me $130 and a couple hours labor, to make a very nice double door. 

I used sanded birch plywood, all connected with Kreg-Jig screws and wood glue, stained with Minwax Jacobean, and used a satin clear on the main portion and semi-gloss on the drawer fronts for that "rich" look.  The entire closet cost me between $800 - $1,000, with everything, including the plywood, 1x2's, screws, stain, clear, drawer glides, handles, and misc.  

I would not have known where to begin without the help on this site, and once I got going, I was able to modify and improvise along the way  to fit my needs.   Thanks.

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!

Our version of your Fancy X Farmhouse Table for you best friend.

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.

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#

I needed to fit seating for 6 into my small eating area in the kitchen, but store bought benches wouldn't work since I needed custom sizes.  Ana White to the rescue!  I created 2 of these benches to help my super vintage 1950's kitchen come alive.  I also made cushions using mdf cut to size as well as 1" upholstery foam and fabric.

Schedule

Project: was great fun
Labor: 2 hours -- 15 year old son helped. He loved it.
For: Gracie/ age 4. Also, the rest of us.
Lumber: mostly 2 by 6 Why? Gracie needs a partner
Thanks: to Ana, and all
Level: just beginner.

Hope: to do more projects inspired by Ana and other

I've built a few projects from Ana's site, but this was my first try at something intended to hold people! It came out very well, and is living out on my deck. It's the only piece of deck furniture I have that's heavy enough to not blow around when it's windy. Thanks, Ana!

Shortened the legs to 17" and used 1x2s on the shelf because that's what we had on hand. Sealed with Thompson's aerosol clear waterseal. 

I needed a bookshelf for my classroom. I decided to make it multi-use by adding some extra storage shelves for classroom supplies. I used your design app to create the plans. I then used an online tool that allows you to input dimensions of parts and the size of the material you are working from to optimize layout and minimize waste. Total material was 1 4x8 sheet of 3/4 plywood for the frame and shelves and a 4x4 sheet of 1/4 for the back. I finished it with a 1" pine face frame.

Charlesh62

I used the Loft Bed design as a starting point but modified it to meet our specs. We used the Full Size version (added the 15 inches to the width and also made all the legs 8 inches higher. We felt like the plan was great but we wanted a little more headroom underneath. This did make figuring out the ladder dimensions a bit complicated, but with some common sense (and a little trial and error) we were very pleased with the results! We originally were going to just purchase an IKEA Stora loft bed. It was on sale for approximately $300.00 plus shipping, which would have been an additional $300.00! Instead we built this and kept the price around $250.00. This bed is extremely sturdy, doesn't squeak at all, and can easily hold a full size adult. Thank you Ana for the great plans!!