Community Brag Posts

I made this coffee table from Ana's Rustic Bench plans in The Handbuilt Home. I needed something fairly small for my living room and this worked perfectly. I used pine and stained it with Minwax Early American. I finished it with 3 coats of Minwax Polyurethane.

I threw some plans together for this.  Going to make another one and tweak it a little but overall I'm happy with the way it turned out. I used dark walnut stain and 4 coats of poly.

This is my first real piece of furniture I've built. We decided to build it in Western Red Cedar because our local home improvement store had a good selection of it. It was pricier than pine, but it holds stain really well and is really beautiful.

I modified the plan and bought a 4x4 for the legs, then I cut that down to 3" x 3" exactly with my table saw. That way it doesn't look like a standard cut of wood, but something more custom. As a result I had to put corner notches in my bottom piece so that it would fit in with the legs. That was tricky to do, but would have been easier if I had a jigsaw

I made a few measuring errors and had to correct it by trimming down the table top so there was only an inch overhang on the edges. So this is actually a few inches less deep than the plan called for, but it worked out ok I think.

With the X's I laid them on top of the legs and traced a line to cut rather than trying to cut an exact miter. I also traced it so that I'd cut a bit off of the top and side of the corner so that it fits in nice and snug on both edges.

I also traced the intersection lines. Then I set my table saw (don't have a circular saw) to 1/2 an inch and just cut out several notches in between the intersection lines so the to X pieces could overlap each other. A "halved joint" I believe it's called.

I absolutely loved this project! My first advanced' leveled project! I was afraid it would be to big for my room so I went 10" smaller in the width only. It surprisingly turned out well proportioned! Thanks Ana! I feel like a women with power!!

Our daughter lives in a small attic apartment that doesn't have much counter space or cupboard space in the kitchen. So my husband and I designed and build her a kitchen island for more usable space and a place on the back she can put stools and she can use it as an eating bar as well. It took us almost 2 weeks because we were trying to build it in the garage below her apartment when she wasn't home. Her reaction was perfection! It turned out so great!!!

This project was very much needed in my house! My daughter loves playing dress up and is obsessed with all things pink and princess-y. It has been driving me crazy that she doesn't play dress up as much as she wants to, though, and the reason why is because we didn't have a good way to store/display her things. Up until we built this it all stayed in this storage bin, but since you had to pull it out in order to even see it, she never played with it. So once I saw this plan I knew it had to be ours. I'm so glad we did it! It turned out beautifully!

My husband built it (his second woodworking project), and, like his last project, he did a great job. No complaints or issues at all. I primed (although I doubt that was necessary) and painted it. I actually did all of the painting other than the letters before he built it, and that turned out nicely. My only complaint was the letters. I bought some stencils from Hobby Lobbby and used a smaller brush to paint them on. For one thing I wish I had of been more careful and paid more attention to how straight the letters were. For another, although you can't tell unless you're up close, there are spots where the paint pooled up under the stencil. My husband sanded it down as much as he could without messing it up, but it's still there a little. I'm no painting expert so I'm not sure how to go about doing this without having that happen. Even with those things, though, I'm so happy with it, and my daughter has been happily playing dress up all week!

My sister asked me to look into building a double loft bed for my two nieces, since the younger was outgrowing her bed and found a plan for one from "The Hand Made Home". http://www.thehandmadehome.net/2011/08/how-to-build-a-loft/
I didn't love how their plan had a rope ladder and no center support in back, so I changed that up. Took around 50 hours work time total, but was a lot of fun and both of my nieces totally loved it, so it was well worth the time and energy! :-)

Wife wanted bookcases for all our books and a desk/work area for her calendar.  I decided to modify the Channing Bookcase to suit our needs.  We built 5 of them to fit the wall.  We did not attach the back trim piece on the shelves to give them a recessed look.  Convinced the wife to let me buy the Kreg K4 system, which saved my sanity for the over 500 pocket holes we had to drill in this project. Thanks for the plans!

This is a very simple weekend project, it took longer to put the finish on than to build it. It is made out of spruce and pine shelves. The finish is done with homemade vinegar steel wool stain for the shelves and paint for the legs. We distressed the legs by sanding and wiping stain in some areas. Finished with 3 coats of exterior poly.

Built straight off the plans except I added drawer slides.

Those angles on the ladder are challenging. This is our first time building any furniture. Thak you Ana W

I built these picket fence planters with my husband. They were very easy to build. I can use them all year around. I’ll add flowers in the spring and summer and mums in the fall and Christmas trees in the Winter. I’m definitely building more for my back porch. Happy building! - Celines

We made some alterations to Shanty2Chic's design. Rather than one side open we made two cabinets with drawers. It made it a little longer and deeper than expected but we are still happy with the desk.
We have a six month old baby, so we build during naps and when we can convince grandma to watch her.

This was my first project! I love this site. My husband and I needed a work space we could share. I loved the width of the craft table so I extended it to the full 8ft of plywood available and added a support shelf. Voila! Table for two!

This was my first time building something like this. I used reclaimed wood from my wife's family farm and decided to use thinner materials. I'm very pleased with the results.