Community Brag Posts

I built the American Girl canopy bed and closet for a family friend for Christmas. This plan was so much fun to make! I will definitely be making a few more for Christmas. I put a tutorial for the mattress I made and will be adding tutorials for the rest of the bedding on my blog tomorrow. Thanks so much!!

I'm not a carpenter by any stretch of the imagination. This is the first building project I've done in God knows how long. Having a brad nailer is almost a must. it make the assembly of this headboard a piece of cake. The hardest part by far for me was finding untreated 4x4's. especially since we wanted to leave them the natural color of the wood. I finally found a local lumber yard that also had a pallet shop where they make custom pallets for area businesses. They had some untreated 4x4's that they use to make pallets with. It took me quite a while to pick out some good ones from the bunch. Even after being very selective with the 4x4's I still had to take 80 grit sandpaper on a belt sander to them to get them to the finished product. They turned out great though. I would say that I'm a jack of all trades type of person, but had no experience building anything remotely close to furniture before. I am usually handy when it comes to figuring things out and doing work with my hands though. If you are looking for a good project to try out, then this one is a great one to start on. As for now, I don't plan to make the footboard and rails for this bed. These headboards cost me a total of about $52 or $53 each in materials. It took me a total of about 5-6 hours to build (2 hours of that was sanding on the 4x4's.)

We like to fly the flag in our family so 4th of July is a big deal for us. I built three sets of crates to share, each with a little difference but all three with red white and blue stain from HD.
Easy to build and the instructions/plans were perfect. Nine crates required four cedar picketts.

We are so thankful for the plan! This is our first building project (ever!) My son loves his new fort bed, and we feel so empowered to have done it ourselves!

My parents have hated their fireplace since they moved into their house 18 years ago. When they moved in it was black bricks, so we painted it white, but it was still really sad looking. I finally got on Ana's site and found plans for Mimi's Faux Mantel and got to work. We just love how it turned out. Really warms up the space and now the fireplace in the focal point of the room. Thanks Ana!

Coffee table with built in toy storage with glaze coat top

I am building a TV console and hutch (will be posting soon) and I have left over of small cut of boards from this project. While waiting for my media center to dry, I built this pet feeder.

I have this messy eater dog (weimaraner) who slobbers all over my floor moulding. Worst thing...she bangs the wall with her aluminum bowl when she tries to lick every single bits of her food there is! So, with that story to tell, I designed and built her a pet feeder(inspired by the small pet feeder plan). And no more banging and messy wall!

This took me for-ever to build but mainly because I have an infant plus two other children. I think the actual time in hours was about 15 for the build and about the same for finish work. We modified the plans to fit my sons full size mattress. We also spent a lot on lumber because, initially, I thought I would stain but ended up painting.

Built this bed and stool for my grandaughter's first "big girl" bed.

The plans for the small and medium picnic table came at a perfect time. Our two granddaughters were growing out of their plastic play table and a big party was on the horizon - a graduation from pre-school.

As it turned out, I had purchased some very nice pine pre-covid and decided to use it for the table. The only change I made to the plan was to use 1" x 6" boards for the top as that was what I had. It gave the table a lighter look. I'm not sure if the boards will cup over time but I'm hoping the 5 coats of Spar Varnish will prevent that from happening.

I was surprised at how easy the plans were to follow and that the level of detail was enough to get it build without questioning "What do I do next?" or "How do I do this?"

I must say that having a miter saw and drill press made the job go faster but I could see that using more basic tools would certainly get the job done. Having the material allowed me to build the table in a single day. The coats of varnish took time to apply and let dry but I believe it will protect the table better than polyurethane.

Great bookcase. I used a 3" screw through the top center into the wall to add lateral stability. Now it is rock solid. The majority of time was spent sanding and finishing.

I saw this plan on pinterest and really liked the way it looked. I bought the wood, but let it sit for a year because it wasn't a priority. Well, we were getting a new dog and he needed a little more room due to hip surgery. So, I expanded the crate dimension and got to work. I added 6 inches to the width, and 4 to the length but turns out I was about an inch shy all the way around to fit a plastic liner tray. Next one will be better. I used birch plywood on the side panels and the bottom panel, but used 4 inch wide board to create a slatted top rather than a solid top. I put hinges on the top with a window latch style lock, and put 2 slider style gate locks on the door. the color was from using medium walnut Danish oil, finished with 3 coats of gloss poly. During the project, I took time to teach my 9 yr old daughter how to use various tools, from the drill to the power miter saw. It was a great bonding time for us, and for a worthwhile reason- the new dog.

Great Miter saw cart plans! Absolutely love how mobile my miter saw is now. I added adjustable shelves and drawers for a ton of storage.

I loved the Holman Entertaining Shleves from Pottery Barn, however, I didn't like the price. Taking the $10 ledge plans and modifying them, I set out to make my own. I used a 1 x 10 (bottom), 1 x 6 (back) and a 1 x 3 (front). They are 23 7/8 inches long to get the 3 shelves out of 6 foot boards. To get the holes to hold the top of the bottle, I used a 1 and 1/4 inch forstner bit. Since I had gift cards left from Christmas I splurged on the wood and bought the select pine.

These desk sets were made from scrap wood and left over finishes, and are the inspiration for the desk bling accessory set plan, the cedar 1-board desk accessory set plan, and the 1-board cedar 2 drawer desktop storage cube plan. I had a ball planning and building these 4 sets over the summer, and gave them to the girls at work today as Christmas gifts. They were a big hit!

The cube sides and drawer fronts are made from scraps of wainscoat paneling.

The gray set is a distressed finish (not shown - the matching cube storage included pulls painted in oil rubbed bronze). The Espresso painted set received pulls spray-painted in silver. The Onyx set was stained with Minwax Express color, with pulls spray-painted in silver. The blue set received 2 coats of paint, and a Walnut glaze. Those pulls were done with a gray paint wash, with sea glass pebbles glued on the fronts.

The pulls are all made from pieces of S4S moulding, sanded and then painted. These also received a poly topcoat before attaching with super glue.

Total time for each set is about an afternoon each. Each set received multiple coats for the finishes, but was well worth the effort.

For some added "bling," I raided my stash of sticky-back felt scraps and applied to the bottoms of each piece, along with the drawer bottoms.

I saw someone else make a stand similar to this by combining the rustic x and tryde plans. I just used 1x for the sides instead of the x. Didn't take more than a few hrs to build but finishing took forever bc a couple boards were crowned so I sanded forever. If anyone has aby questions or needs help feel free to email me @ [email protected]