Community Brag Posts

With a new baby on the way, my husband, Steve and I had to move our 2yr old son out of the nursery and into his big boy bedroom. After casually looking at storage beds and falling over in shock at the prices, I came across Ana’s plans for the storage bed. Knowing that Steve is extremely handy but had not attempted to build furniture before, I started talking him into building this bed. He was sold the moment I told him that we would save close to $2400 by building it ourselves. This was a longer than anticipated project mainly due to Steve’s full time work schedule, my inablility to handle stain fumes, allowing a toddler to “help” build his bed and working around said toddler’s nap schedule. We modified Ana’s plans by adding some trim to the cubby hutch, omitting the doors on the small hutch and sizing everything to a full size bed. We also omitted the shelves on the storage headboard since we weren’t going to use them with the side towers. I am absolutely in LOVE with the final result and have a long list of other projects that we will be building in the near future.

I needed a table along side our hot tub, primarily for drinks or appetizers while using the hot tub. The farmhouse table plan worked out perfectly to its height and how it fit in well with the structure of the hot tub. It also does double duty with my grill directly across from it allowing me some storage shelves or grill items.

So my sister moved back to Southern California from New York. She found a great place but needed a table. I made one table and one bench. My sister then found two chairs for the other side. This is the second or third thing I have made/built from Ana’s site. Thank you for making me feel more manly with great instruction. I also built this pre Covid-19 when lumber was not so expensive.

I redid this whole room for less than $600! Make sure you take your time with cuts and fitting. I did this with my father in law (my daughter even got to help out!), and it's less than perfect due to some rushing! More details on my blog.

I also couldn't find any 4x4's. Instead of doubling up on 2x4's, I just used one. That allowed me to change the tops of the head/foot boards to only 48" instead of 50 1/2. You can get enough for a head and foot board out of one board this way.

After looking at a TON of bunk bed ladders online, I designed my own. Just some leftover 2x4's. The sides are 47 1/2 inches long, and the rungs are 13 1/2 inches long. It's screwed to the bunk bed from the back so you don't see the screws.

I wanted to build a planter box by our front door, which is not exposed to the weather. I based the design on the video I saw on YouTube for the “Easy Build DIY Planter Box” made from cedar and painted white.. Being based in Australia I amended the dimensions to metric, and used plywood rather than cedar. I am delighted with the finished product. So many thanks, Ana, for your part in making this planter box on the other side of the world.
Cheers Noel

Recently I was a Crate and Barrel and I found the Sloane Leaning Desk and thought that it would be perfect for my media center. (See that wall heater under the desk, I needed that to be open and I was tired of my big wood box of a media center on the, now, couch wall.) So knowing that I had seen the Leaning Wall Shelf on this site I knew I could reconfigure it a bit to work out for my own needs.

First, I cut the dimensions down a bit. Instead of the 31 1/2" length on all of the shelves I cut them at 24". Then then all the back trim at 25 1/2". Then for the middle section, I cut the shelf and desk at 36" and the back trim to 37 1/2". The side trim for the desk is 14 1/4". The desk itself was 22x36" and the top shelf was cut from a 1x8x6. I did this because I could cut all the other shelves and the desk from one piece of 4x8' plywood. For added support I used a 2x4 as the brace under the desk and added 1x2 braces (cut at a 45 degree angle) for extra support on the front/ sides of the desk (see photo). I also left all the edges squared off for a more modern look, like the Sloane.

I hope this helps you and good luck with your project! FYI, this was my first build EVER, and with a little help from my dad cutting the wood and getting it level, I got it done pretty easily. Oh, and get yourself some large clamps or an extra set of hands to help hold things together while you're drilling.

Simple beginner project. Would have preferred a more durable wood, but still a fun and quick project.

Ok, so no one is going to get really jazzed about this but me, but hey.. I actually had to cut this, which I did on my own with no help from the hubs and nail in the bottom boards. That was a bit tricky cause I used other pallet wood so I didn't have to rob any of the nice stuff from my scrap pile. :-)