Community Brag Posts

I am cheap and I have expensive taste. I love, love, love Pottery Barn. I also love Michael Kors, Coach, Gucci, Jimmy Choo, and all things pretty. Especially pretty shiny things.

So I regress...

Anyways, I have had this bare spot in my living room and it has slowly been driving me crazy. Through much painstaking research I have decided that I wanted something like the Hyde Pottery Barn Console Table. Okay, not something like.... I wanted the Hyde Pottery Barn Console Table, but it also would cost $500. Hahaha. $500 for a console table. That's just ridiculous says my cheap, fugal self.

So I look at ebay and craigslist... nope, no one selling my dream table. And then a miracle happens.... I stumble across Ana White's blog. I think I've found my new blog BFF!

I followed her plans exactly and I decided to paint the bottom off white and stain the top walnut.

This was my first ever furniture build and I'm so excited by how it turned out!

Thanks, Ana!

Thank you Ana for the clubhouse bed plans! I added 15" to the width of the rails to accommodate a full size mattress. On the other side I made a slide platform! I chose a standard plastic slide because I couldn't find a way to make a wooden slide at home with the swoop at the bottom to keep the kids from hitting the carpet hard :). We couldn't have a green outdoor-looking slide, am I right? I used Rustoleum  spray paint made for plastic in French Lilac color.  After the paint I used a top a coat of Minwax 3x polyurethane. I also used the Rustoleum spray paint for the window grids. 

To accommodate the slide specs I needed to raise this bed 5".  I just made each leg 5" longer.  Also, the ceiling in my daughter's room slopes down so I cut the point off the back of the bed.  Totally not noticeable.  I needed to do this even if I hadn't raised the bed :)

I also added full window frames around the window to make the bed a little more girly!  One unexpected result is that the bedroom looks BIGGER with this bed in it. She had a twin size step 2 plastic castle bed before but now there is so much more room to play. Win!  Changing the sheets isn't too bad but you need to get in the bed to do it.

I built this bed by myself. Don't be afraid, you can do this! Once the panels are assembled they get a bit heavy so you have to be sort of creative to drag them across the garage floor :)

Next up: mailbox for the bed, shelves under the slide and window boxes!

This was made from several heavy duty palettes that were used for delivering stone. Because of the wood I could get off the palettes, I switched the thin and thick pieces so that the slat gaps were where the 2x4 pieces were missing instead of the 1x4s. 

I have a really boring backyard patio so I thought I would spice it up with flowers but I could not find a plan for a large right angle planter. So I made up my own.

The planter is made from cedar fencing but pine for the top trim and the corner legs. The legs have grooves that the sides slide into and are not screwed or glued in place. That is so you can remove the top trim and then just pull the sides out to replace them as needed or to even change the size of the planter.

This planter is 18" high so it is comfortable to sit on but that also means you will need a lot of soil to fill it up. Mine took 26 40lb bags which is over 1/2 ton of soil. Add water and that planter is here to stay. But it also means that there is a large tendency for the sides to bulge along the bottom so I placed stop blocks along the bottom base and screwed into the base.

I planted Angelonia for color and sage, oregano, and thyme for spice. It was fun to build and came out well but it was expensive as the soil along was nearly $60. Add another $50 for lumber and screws and you have exceeded the magic $100 mark. Still a good deal, however.

Came across this plan as my first wood working project. Took the corner brackets to a different level, spoke with a local blacksmith who created the brackets for me to give it a more rustic feel.  Created the nails, same way they were done in the early 1800's.

Total time took me longer than normal since this was my first project.  Otherise I could see hammering out one of these a day (excluding waiting for stain to dry)

Very excited to keep going, thanks for the great site Anna!

My first build I ever did back early 2016. 

My wife and I are expecting our first child, a baby girl, in September. I decided that I was going to make as much of the furniture as possible, and started with this dresser/changing table.

This is the first project I've made with drawers, and they were a bit of a challenge. Other than that building the dresser was straight forward. The drawer fronts are made from up-cycled deck boards and the knobs are from Anthropologie

I really like the legs of this table but wanted a square, planked top.  I also used a stencil that I got from amazon for the design.

I was making the fancy x desk, and my wife suggested building a bench to go with it to make it a bar style kitchen table to take up less space in our kitchen. So I looked up plans for a bench on here (providence bench looked best with it), and built it. I painted it with rust-oleum American accents spray paint for wood, metal, and plastic in glossy black and surprisingly it looked amazing!

This is my first project, just to see if I could actually build something. I used some wood and paint we had lying around the garage, since I didn't want to put money into something I might screw up! This turned out to be pretty easy, despite the wood being a little warped from sitting in the garage for years. It's not perfect, but now I have a place to store my husband's golf magazines that were cluttering up the bathroom -- and the courage to try something bigger!

My take on the Mini Farmhouse Bedside Table using a combination of new and repurposed pine.  Using a 3/8” round over bit and router I softened the edges of the top and the shelf.  I substituted a ‘plank’ look on the sides instead of the solid flat which the plan calls for.  Finished with a scuffed paint and contrasting dark stain which makes the piece stand out.  

I altered the dimensions slightly so that it wouldn't be overbearing in my living room. It is much shorter than the plan suggests, and the length and width are also changed. I used framing 2x4 and 2x6 lumber, so I had to sand the heck out of it to make it nice and smooth. It looks great next to the console table. Good plan.

Friends asked me to design a princess/castle bed for their daughter. It needed to fit a single/twin size mattress and fit a 61 inch space they had so I designed the overall width to be 60 inches.

It is all made from solid planks apart from the two big shelves in the headboard which are plywood.

They wanted the sides close to the headboard to be raised as well so their little girl didn't roll out the bed.

Not added the slats yet as it is off to the paint shop to be sprayed Pink!! I will post more photos once painted and will also post plans soon once finished them.

Hope the little girl likes it when she sees it.