Community Brag Posts

My brother-and-law has been building a TON of projects from Ana's site. After comparing prices of farmhouse tables online, my husband and I decided to try building our own. I measured our dining room, modified the plans (to make the table slightly shorter and slightly wider), then we picked up some basic tools and lumber, setup a little shop in our garage, and went to work. It took us a whole week (of after-work and after-the-kids-are-down nights) plus maybe a weekend to complete this project.

We started staining the legs of the table with a minwax stain in Dark Walnut, but it left it looking very contrasty/zebra-like. An employee at the hardware store recommended Rust-o-Leum, so we finished up the top with it. Added a clear satin varnish on top (Deft), then moved it inside. We love it!!! (We stained it after distressing it, then added 5-6 coats of varnish).

Things we'd do differently:
1. Invest early in a Pocket Hole Jig (like the Kreg Jig) to piece your wood together. We actually bought one for our second wood project (which I was able to screw together pretty much the entire thing myself...whereas, both my hub and I had to work together to get this table put together...it was a pain!), and wished we had purchased this earlier.

2. Check your wood and get it as straight (not bowed) as possible. Then don't let the sprinklers or rain get on it. :) Don't worry about knots, holes, or other things that could give your table character.

3. You can stain the wood using paper towels. (I did this on the second project...worked great, and easy clean up).

4. Make sure you square up your wood every step of the way. We THOUGHT we did this...but with trying to screw pieces together, and making them fit... now we've got an extra piece of wood underneath one of our legs. :P

My husband and I built this bed for my sister-in-law for Christmas. It took us about a week of working an hour or so a day on it. Most of that time was staining. The actually assembly took about 2 hours. 

I included a picture of how we attach the siderails to the headboard/footboard. We use a bracket that the 1x2 slides into. It is screwed to both the siderail and the headboard with 1 1/4" screws. We also attach a small L bracket to each corner with helps remove any wiggle that was there previously. It really makes the bed much more stable by adding those little L brackets. Again, we used 1 1/4" screws to attach them. 

Rustic Media Center stained with teal and white distressed paint. 

My sons awesome fort. It took some time to complete, as I was doing it on my own. The balancing and juggling act when attaching a few pieces would of made some priceless videos. I used plans from " Clubhouse Bed" as a general guide.

this was a joy to build. I left the back open at the request of the recipient.

I followed Anna White's plan to build this chairs. My kids love them. Thanks for the free plan. It took me a while to finished it because they were my first project.

This is the final installment (#6) in the doll bed and high chair sets I've been building my great nieces. Each set was decorated with a lamb water-slip decal on the end of the bed (kind of a little theme going). This is the second crib I've built with dowels - I usually use 1" x 2"s - and I learned to use a spade drill bit rather than a regular drill bit. It doesn't split the wood around the holes. I've had a lot of fun building these for my nieces, and now I may have to start building them for my friends' children and grandchildren. :-)

All the boards are ran through a jointer and planer making each board squared.

No rounded ends.

Stain conditioner used.

Finish - Minwax Early American

I wanted an easy toy box made from pallets. I came across the plans for the Simple Cedar Wooden Toy Box and decided it would be easier to but a few lengths of cedar fencing than to tear apart a bunch of pallets.

I omitted the feet and rope handles and opted for a carved wooden sign for personalization. I thought it was going to be too small, but soon realized it is a decent sized box.

I used Minwax Jacobean stain and am very happy with the end result.

I have hunted for the perfect dining room bench for my large family but they were either to poorly crafted to withstand my crew, to small, or to pricey. Then I found this site showed the farm house bench to my husband and he said, "Hey I can build that!" and build it he did. He changed a few things here and there but the overall finished bench is AMAZING, and I LOVE IT!!! Thanks Ana!

I had a friend who needed a bed for two energetic boys for a small bedroom.  I saw these plans and thought this would be perfect for them.  They absolutely loved it and now have plenty of room for their toys in their bedroom. 

Used the plans with minor modifications, many thanks for a great design!

I was so excited when I saw the plan for this! I love making crates out of wood. It was quick and easy and I already had a cedar fence post! It was less than 30 minutes start to finish! For more pictures check out my blog post. Thanks Ana!

I used 1x3 box pine instead of 2x4's for the bits that things sit on, and everything fits perfectly.

Originally I was planning on a 3.6m long x 0.6m deep X 1.8m high shelf.  At the lumberyard I found out that 2x4's came in 6m lengths as standard, so I adjusted this to 1.5m high instead, which worked out fine as I think 1.8m would have been a bit tall to get heavy things on top of.  Luckily for me my power points and light switches were just under this, which I didn't think about at the time!

Originally I was going to try and cut grooves for the 'rungs' of the ladder frames to slot into, hence the insets at the bottoms of the legs.  I think that the glue-and-screw construction will be plenty strong enough, though.

This took me about 4 hours to put together, and cost about NZD$170 all up, which is about USD$120.

I've got the bug.  Making things is awesome.

This took me an afternoon because I have never used a compound mitre saw before so I was teaching myself through trial & error.
It was really fun to try and I will definitly be making more!