Community Brag Posts

This was my first project. My wife wanted one, I made one. End of story. Now I'm hooked on woodworking and each time my wife says she wants something, the first thing out of my mouth is, "I can make that".

Fairly easy table to built, just be careful measuring for coolers.

My husband built this table for me as an 8th Anniversary present.  It came out absolutely beautiful! For the first time,  we can host  family and friends with plenty of room. I paired it with some chairs that we already owned. He will be building the matching bench soon.

He left out the 45 degree diagonals,  may add them later.  It is so sturdy, they are basically decorative. 

I have a hard time throwing out any scrap I have after I finish a project, so I had accumulated a fair amount of 3/4 and 1/2 plywood. I used up every last bit of it putting a scrap wood heart collage in my daughter's room! This is the perfect project for getting lots of practice making cuts on a miter saw for a beginner and hanging it is a breeze if you follow the steps I took in the blog post I wrote up about this.

Easy and free. Love those kinds of project :)

A delight for our daughter. We added an extra rung to the back rest, and kept the seat pretty high for her small babies. Otherwise, we just followed the free plan. Thx!

There were some parts missing from the plans. I wrote out what I did to build this rocker on my website.

http://www.domesticated-engineer.com/1/post/2012/12/ladybug-moped-rocke…

Make sure to use hard wood! My rocker broke within the first hour. Wood glue fixed it but it gave me a good scare!

Made this beautiful TV stand from the "Rustic X Console table plans". I shortened it to 2 ft high to fit the space for a TV. Love how it turned out!!

I needed a book display rack for my boys so I built this one from the plate rack plans and modified it to suit the size I needed. I actually used all scrap lumber from previous projects, so the cost was minimal.

I used the same cedar fence boards, but for a large berry patch made with minimal cuts. The end boards are 1/2 the length of the long side boards. I made them 2 fence widths high - about 11 inches. Each bed is nearly 12 feet long. I joined the dogeared ends of 2 boards in the center, making a diamond cut out pattern that looked good. In order to support the tall sides, I used cedar 2x4x8 boards. Use 18-24 inch posts on each corner and at the center joint. I cut an additional board in half, affixing it to the center posts, to brace the long sides and add stability. Each box is approximately 3 feet wide, 12 feet long, and 11 inches tall. You'll need 8 fence posts for the long sides, 2 for the short sides, and 1/2 for the brace - you could use a different piece of wood for this, but the cedar fence posts are such a deal. You'll also need approximately 9 feet of cedar 2x4 for the corner posts - I bought 8 foot lengths and cut each into 2 foot posts for stability. The cost was around I'll add 2x4 posts in the spring and put a trellis behind the raspberries. If the birds start to steal my blueberries, I'll add metal or wooden corner posts that will support fruit netting. We're planting strawberries around the base of the larger fruit bushes. The 11 inch sides should keep rabbits from invading. If they are persistent, I'll add a few inches of chicken wire around the top edge. This made the equivalent square footage of 4 of Ana's original $10 beds.

Dress up closet made from craftiness Is Not Optional's Dress Up Storage plans.

This is my first wood project. It was probably a bit ambitious for a first project, but what can I say other than Ana White inspires me.

It all started with buying that big ol' TV. We had a chunky armoire that wasn't going to work anymore and I really liked Ana's Apothecary Console and I REALLY liked kayleentheobald's take on the Console in the brag posts. My wife went out of town for the week and I had redhead_61 help me take the design and make it bigger to fit between our windows and be big enough for my son's bigger toys. I was going to be the good husband and surprise her with a finished product when she got back. So I went to work, every night after work with redhead_61 and got the carcass put together pretty fast and really the only thing we needed was the top and the doors. I decided to pack it all up in the back of the truck and ask my neighbor for help on the doors.

Now this is where the amount of time I put into the project got a little out of hand (BTW there is no button for "way more than a week" for estimated time investment). I told my neighbor that I wanted my faux drawers to look a lot more like an apothecary cabinet with smaller drawers, so we came up with a plan to make 6 panels per door all done tongue and groove using muntins and styles (like window panes) and do it without any screws or nails. If we knew what we were doing maybe we would have got the doors done in only a few days, but it took closer to a few weeks spread over a couple months due to work and other obligations.

Building the base is not that hard; just square everything up and use wood glue and screws. We added a little molding at the bottom for some aesthetic appeal.

The real time came in the finishing I described below. After I had spent several weekends building the thing I no longer wanted something I could just throw in the family room and put a TV on top; I wanted a real piece of furniture that would last forever. This is where my wife interjects, "well it better since you took over a year to finish it." I love you too, honey.

I wood filled, primed, sanded and repeated many times over until I had it just right. (BTW if you're going to use plywood, take the time and effort to find a place that sells good high quality stuff that is meant to build furniture not the construction grade crap I got from Home Depot - it'll only save you about 100 hours of wood filling, priming and sanding)

Finally, after 14 months (I didn't work on it constantly - being a lawyer and a dad kind of sucks up disposable time) I could haul my masterpiece into the house put the TV on top, sit back and admire the work. I can tell you it was worth every moment. Thank you Ana White for inspiring me to bite off more than I could chew. That said, I think my next project is going to be a shelf or something.

I fell in love with this set from the moment I saw it on Shanty-2-Chic's website.  I knew I had to have it for the deck I just built in my backyard.  It's pretty straightforward, the only difficulty I ran into was assembling the legs.  I copied the angles provided in the instructions to a "T" but there are still some gaps where the angled pieces join.  After spray painting it they are not very noticeable.  It is a heavy beast of a table and took everything in me to help my husband heave it up on to the deck, but it's absolutely lovely.  It is so large we can easily have people over for a BBQ and everyone fits around the table.  I'm so thrilled with the results.  Thanks, Ana!

I modified this bench to incorporate a Texas theme. I traced a Texas shaped cutting board onto a 1x16 piece of edge-glued board, and then cut it out with my jigsaw.

Doll Bunk bed, this was a lot of fun to make the plan was laid out well and very easy to follow.

This was a gift to a friend's 10 year old and it really made her happy.

I enjoyed sewing the bedding. It was just an over all load of fun.

I made it very quickly, I think the filling, sanding painting took longer.

This was a pretty straight forward design! I am so in love with my new planters. This was my second Ana White build. I can't wait to do more. The only changes I made to the plans were adjusting the side up so they were even with the legs. Then I added a 1X3 topper as some of the others have done. The crests that are attached my husband had made while in the Phillipines. I've been waiting for a special project to use them on and this was definitely it! Thanks Ana!!