Community Brag Posts

For my second project I wanted to build something a little more difficult than a shelf.  The hubby showed me how to use our power tools and I was unstoppable.  I chose this great bench because it fit the feel of our house and I wanted an entryway spot to sit while putting on shoes. 
The finishing took much longer than it actually took to build the bench.  I thought it would be more difficult to get the precise angle measurements  to make the supports under the bench, but it was not bad at all.  I can 't believe I built this pretty bench!  I have the building fever now!

Converted an ordinary bathroom vanity into a Napoleon sink console/vanity. This is the second one I’ve completed, the first was in the hall bathroom which Hubby calls “his” bathroom. Since this one for the master bath is more feminine, I’m calling her Josephine! This was approximately a day and a half project, but spread out over several weekends. I had originally planned to put a faux drawer in front of the sink, and had the drawer front made, but then decided I’d like to try to make some custom drawers in front of the sink to utilize that space. I ended up doing the center drawer fronts twice – on the first try the space in the center was a little too narrow for the knob once the trim was in place. Since the vanity is in a corner, the sink doesn’t fall exactly in the center of the vanity cabinet, leaving it left of center by about an inch. This required different middle drawer sizes with interesting shapes.

The drawers are made from a combination of 3/8” craft boards and 3/8” plywood, ½” craft board, and some ¼” plywood for the bottoms (all of them except the one right of center – that has ¾” plywood for the bottom). The 2 outer drawers also have ¾” S4S as guides.

The doors and drawer fronts are ¼” birch plywood cut to size, with ½” x 1 ½” craft boards glued to the fronts for rails and stiles (I added a few pin nails from the back side also). Inside these, mitered pieces of mini-stop moulding were glued in place. The whole thing received some putty on the edges and joints, and thorough sanding with 80-grit, then 220-grit.

The inside frames are made from S4S, 1x2, and some scraps of 1x4 cut to size. If I were doing this in a newly constructed vanity without the sink already in place, the setup for the drawers would have been much simpler. But, we weren’t ready to buy new yet, so necessity was the mother of invention and we have this. I re-used the hinges and 2 of the knobs from the original, and I bought 4 more and the hardware for the drawers.

The pull-outs in the bottom are made from plywood scraps, thoroughly sanded and painted. These are based on Ana’s wood pull out cabinet drawer organizer, with added supports across the bottom to make the drawer clear the lip of the face frame, keeping them the correct distance apart, and giving something to attach to the cabinet floor.

For the inside floor of the cabinet, I got this Idea from Yvonne at Sunnyside Up-Stairs in this post:
http://sunnysideup-stairs.blogspot.com/2013/06/progress-installed-dishw…
Left over flooring was placed on the cabinet floor to give it a fresh new look and protect the cabinet bottom. Our house is 21 years old, so you can imagine the floor of the vanity cabinet had seen some wear and tear. Now it looks new!

Followed the plan exactly, with the exception of the stain. I mixed a walnut and rosewood stain to give it a little more warmth/red.

Here is a custom rustic barn wood dog crate we built for our friends – with the majority of the barn wood reclaimed from their own barn.  The piece is approximately 36″ high, 60″ wide, and 29″ deep; with interior dimensions of 30″ x 56″ x 26″ – plenty of room for a large dog to move around and stretch out.  Of course, it is on locking casters too so it can be easily moved around.

The frame of this piece is made from the reclaimed barn wood, which was 2 x 6 stock resawn down to 2 x 3.  The sliding barn door also started as 2 x 6 material which we cut down to 1 x 2 stock.  The barn door was the only piece of this where we used a Kreg jig and pocket hole screws.  The rest of this custom rustic barn wood dog crate used miter joints for the front corner, while the back and bottom were attached in rabbets we cut in the outer frame.

The spindles are standard 1/2″ rebar, cut to the appropriate length and painted with a hammered black spray paint.  They are are recessed about 1″ into the wooden frame to ensure the dog can’t push them out or crack the wood while leaning on them.

This custom rustic barn wood dog crate also includes custom, hand made barn door hardware we made ourselves.  Yes, we do some metal work too!  We made this barn door hardware from standard flat bar steel and pulley wheels.  We even made custom clevis pins from 5/8″ steel rod to hold the wheels in place.  

There are more pictures here.

This was the first project I tackled by myself. I think I spent about $70 and used pine.

I built matching side tables using Ana's Narrow Cottage End Table plan. I changed the height to suit the arms of my furniture. They fit our tight space and look fantastic with our existing wood pieces. Very easy to build, even the drawers! I used a router to finish the edge on the drawers, to make them stand out a little more. I learned to put my pocket holes on the outside of the drawer, since the back one is in the back, and the front one is covered by the separate drawer front piece. A Kreg jig makes this a very simple project. Also, I sanded my boards before assembly, then did touch-ups before finishing the project.

We had some additional kids coming over and I needed to build them quickly.

From a pine tree in the back yard to a great looking crib that will hopefully stay in the family for generations.

We had to take down a pine in the back yard to make room for a barn so I had it milled into lumber for future projects. I was able to get the majority of the lumber I needed from that tree, everything except for the 4x4's and 2x6's. I got what I thought was pine but after staining it I quickly realized that it was not (maybe hemlock?). The grain didnt match at all so I had to track down some new wood and remake the pieces. Boy was that frustrating! I also bothered myself to hide as many fasteners from (finished) view as possible. It made the project a bit more involved but the finished product made it all worth it. 

My first woodworking project. Found the instructions very easy to follow. Took me a couple weeks because I only had a few minutes to work on it at a time. Biggest issue was I happened to have picked up a few warped boards.

My first project! The legs are shorter than in the plans-my fault for not reading thoroughly before I printed just the cut list and headed to the store. Still, I love it. I used the Square Planters with Finials plan for this. Painted it with a stencil in place, then stained over that. Also used a kreg jig.

Console table built for clients 

Farmhouse Table Plans. 8ft long, Antique Walnut Stain. Absolutely adore!

I've always wanted a Cali King bed, but balked at the one to six thousand dollar price tag for the showroom models. This one is an excellent, straight-forward build with little modification needed from the plans given. The lumber yard staff was great at selecting high quality stock once they knew to what end what the pieces were going to be used, so utilize their expertise. Tolerances are fairly tight on this bed, so measure carefully, and more than once. With the addition of the four posts and canopy frame (also provided on www.Ana-White.com ), and a Stearns and Foster luxury plush mattress from Costco, I've more than got my money's worth. Indeed, so will my children. it's heirloom quality.

Built this for our living room. It's strong enough to withstand the daily rigors of a 4 and 5 year old. I built this last year, and have done several more since then. 

For the past few years our family has been enjoying building together.  Our garage became a dumping ground for all the scraps and it got to the point where the piles became unmanagable.  We build this cart from almost 100% scraps.  The only piece that cost a bit where the casters, but we wanted to ensure that we could move the cart around in the garage  so we purchased the most heavy duty ones at the big box store.  This project took about one hour a night for a few days.  Very pleased with how it turned out.  Now that we have our garage back we can get back to building.  

I built the library book cart to organize all my toddler and preschooler's books. What we were using just wasn't cutting it; the books end up being scattered everywhere. I love the idea of a pretend library cart (I used to work in one...), and the kids can feel like they have the library in their room! They're playing "library" as I type!

This was an easy build. I used 1 1/4" screws for the 2-in castor wheels for 3 out of 4 screws per castor where I had enough depth. I also used wood glue. For the 4th screw per castor, I used 1/2" screws. This was mainly due to being all I had on hand...not sure if it was correct. We'll see if the wheels hold up with the weight of all the books! Other than those changes, I followed Ana's plans.

Oh, and I managed to create handles without really knowing what I was doing! They turned out OK. I tried two different methods for each handle, but basically used a drill, chisel, and jigsaw and then sanded, sanded, sanded after I made the cut. I think I can do better next time!

This was a lot of fun, and wasnt to difficult. I modified the existing design, and increased the size. It will be painted once my son decides on the color.....