Community Brag Posts

I did these as a birthday present for my husband. He is very picky about seating, but he said these were very comfortable! I used 1x4 oak for the headers and pine for the rest. After reading others' concerns about the support dowel, I decided to do the following:
1. Drill a 3/4" hole halfway through each 1x2 support with a 1/4" hole continuing the rest of the way through to the outward facing side of each
2. I glued a 1/4" dowel into one 1x2, pushing the dowel as flush as possible to the outer edge of the 1x2. I then slid a 3/4" hollow steel tube onto the wood dowel, and into the 3/4" hole in the 1x2.
3. Finally glued the other end of the wooden dowel into the other 1x2 (which forces the steel tube to nest into the 3/4" hole in the 1x2) and trimmed the excess dowel flush. The steel tube acts as the support, and the 1/4" wood dowel simply holds it all together. Did that make any sense?

If you can possibly avoid paying full price on the fabric, DO! That alone accounts for 70% of this project's total cost!

We made this in just over 2.5 hours with the kids "helping."  We made it a bit taller, with the seat at 19 inches, so the leg pieces were 25.25 inches instead of 18.25.  Because of this, we will probably add two supports across each side as it seems a bit wobbly when the kids all wiggle on it.  Now we finally have a seat where all 3 kids can sit together to play on the computer.  Thanks for the plans!

I had a lot of fun making this. I am so excited to be using it. Ana's plans were easy to follow.

This was a project to use some pieces of left over ¼” thick aromatic cedar closet lining board.  I cut off the tongues and grooves with the sliding miter saw, and calculated the measurements for the box to fit the size of the wood.  For this build I used the micro-pin nailer with compressor, and ½” headless pin nails.  The finished box measures 4 1/8” tall, 6” long, and 3 3/8” wide.

Inside, a divided lift-out tray sits on rails made from small pieces of the cedar board glued to the inside.  The addition of an extra decorative board to the top made it ¾” thick, to work with a regular knob.  The inside of the box stayed unfinished to preserve the cedar fragrance.  This was an afternoon project.

I've wanted to build one of these forever! I changed the plans a lot to accommodate my needs, but I loved the idea of faux drawers on the doors to have an authentic look. It fools most people! Took 2 weeks for me to complete, working on and off. It has great storage inside for all the kids' stuff I didn't have a place for previously. The stain is ebony by minwax and the hardware pulls I purchased for under $10 for 30. 

This was just a quick little project as we decided we needed a bit of organisation in the office.

I just used scrap mdf and leftover bits and pieces from other projects for this wall file. We now have somewhere to put all the postage stuff for our online sales site.

Cheers... Nay

Our son Liam-Joseph wanted a "Big-Boy Bed" and then he added "I want Daddy and Santa to make it".  Well "Santa" and my wife Jacques looked all over the internet and finally found your Cabin Bed via jennwoodhouse.com.  Jacques altered the plans demensions and she realized the bed could be barn-like so she came up with the red and gray paint job.  She actually wanted a cupola but I thankfully talked her out of that.  Well somehow we keep the construction from Liam 2 weeks before Christmas.  On Christmas Eve Liam's Grandparents keep him at their house while "Santa" and I put the bed together (I never did a trial run so I was relieved when everything fit right together).  The next day after opening his presents he ran up to his room and saw his bed for the first time.

The project isn't completed.  I recently finished the roof with wood pallets but I need to finish the trimming of the interior of the bed walls.  

I built this for a friend who needed a small side table. All the cuts were made with a chop saw. I used 1X3 furring strips and 2X2's. It was a little tricky to get all the table slats to match up. I used the Kreg jig to conceal all the screws and get stronger joints. I love that thing!

I've been organizing our unfinished basement so that my boys have more space to run and ride their bikes over the winter. I needed something to organize our off season clothes and bins of clothes that my boys are growing in/out of. This plan was perfect. It's not my prettiest build but it's soooo functional!

Fun and easy project. I couldn't be happier with the end results. Great plan from Ana White. 

Ethan and I did a little project last week.

It’s been windy and cold outside and we’ve been running out of indoor activities. We made Valentine decor, heart-shaped food, colored, met friends at museums and toddler-rock’n-roll-playing coffee joints, played trains and kitchen and dinosaurs, read a hundred books.

One super fun source of indoor entertainment we’ve never successfully completed is building a fort.

When I was young, I was the fort-making queen. My parents had this incredible 80′s-style glass-and-metal table with huge leather and wood chairs (it was insane), each piece weighing what seemed like a million pounds—PERFECT fort building materials. Blankets, pillows, books, and toys made a wonderland of imagination for me and my friends. I remember supporting corners of blankets with this heavy old clay jug and other skull-crushing items that could have crashed down at any wrong movement. How we make it through childhood is beyond me.

I guess our furniture selection is just not fort-worthy. At least, not in the sense that doesn’t pose the risk of a chair toppling on him, undoubtedly leading to suffocation and/or a concussion.

So a few minutes spent reading Ana White’s website, a little trip to the hardware store (where a visit to the “big saw” was requested only to end in wimpers of “no saw, I’m scared!”), about $25, and a little sweat later, we had a perfect little “fort” with no chance of injury, one that doesn’t need to be disassembled…ever.

We had everything cut down at the hardware store. Paint was leftover from Ethan’s train board, side panels made from Target tab-top curtains I’ve had since college. Really.

It was Ethan’s first construction project so I started him off right—with sanding.

When everything was nice and smooth, we had lunch and the Peanut hit the hay while I took out the “big mama bit collection” and started drilling. As usual, Ana’s plans were very well illustrated and straightforward…we used her oven door plan for Ethan’s kitchen and it worked perfectly.

By the time Little Man woke, we were ready for paint. I wondered if painting with a toddler was the smartest idea…but we just went for it.

He did GREAT. Thank you Ikea for the $2 smock.

As I’d feared, the (almost) finished product was about four feet too tall. It was massive in our living room!

So a few days later the Hubs helped me cut it down with our chop saw. So much for making things easy by having all the wood pre-cut. I guess Ana’s house is much bigger than ours.

My next task was hemming, narrowing, and velcro-izing the panels. With a much shorter tent, my trusty old curtains were way too long. Plus, I wasn’t so sure about Ana’s suggestion to staple curtain to tent…it seemed much too permanent What if we want to add a stamped pattern? Or a window? Or change up the fabric? Velcro seemed safer.

Sure, it’s not the fastest way, but I think it was worth the time. And my $20 craigslist sewing machine handled it like a champ.

We’ve already done some good lazin’ around in the new fort. Or nook. Or tent. Whatever, Ethan seems to think it is pretty cool.

It’s also pretty popular with our furry friends.

Hey all my DIY friends!

This is my first build of the Rekourt Dining Table.  Big thanks goes out to Ana and Jen for providing these awesome plans.

I think I achieved this table quite well, except for a minor detail where I forgot to sand two pot holes.  It actually created a very rustik look to this table.  I decided to try the steel wool and vinegar solution combined with the black tea for the finish of this table.  I realized it adds so much richness to the wood, it's incredible.  The stain is Minwax's Dark Walnut and I topped it off with a Satin Oil-based Polyurethane.  The top and legs were also physically distressed using a variety of tools I found in my tool chest. Those included screw drivers, lag bolts, worm hole puch I created out of a leftover 2x4, chains, sanding disc, knife, hammer and much more!  That part, although tedious, was fun as it gave me the permission to bang stuff up intentionally :)

For the finish, I first started off by sanding very well, talking hours for the entire table. I then went out and distressed the tops in a very random fashion, trying to not repeat any patterns.  As I was doing this, I was waiting for my black tea to seep and be ready for application.  I poured boiling water in a large Mason jar and added 4-5 bags of black orange pekoe tea bags.  I waited about 2 hours before applying it with a foam brush, very liberally.  I allowed the tea to dry overnight and the following day, I applied the steel wool and white vinegar solution. My solution had been sitting for about 5 days, enough to start seeing a bit of rust in the Mason jar. The rusty solution ended up giving the wood an orangy/redish tone, which when seen under the dark walnut, added lots of depth and richness to the color.  Once dry and the wood had turned greyish/orangy/redish, I stained it using Minwax's Dark Walnut stain.  I did section by section, leaving the stain no more than 3 minutes before wiping dry.  I followed this (once the stain was dry) with two coats of oil-based polyurethane in satin (Varathane (Canada's version of the Rust-Oleum poly). I sanded the poly in between coats with 220-grit sandpaper using my orbital sander.

Since then, I have gone out to build about five of these, all in different lengths and sizes, including some with removable bases. The angles in the X's are a little tricky when you don't have plans for a specific size, but I have noted these down based on spacing between legs.  If any of you need andgles for specific table lengths, let me know and I may be able to help :)

Let me know what you think and happy building!

I have a 2 1/2 yo daughter and a 2 yo niece, so I make most of Ana's awesome plans in duplicate! These are two versions of her Dress Up console, one was for my niece's 2nd Bday, the other I just had to make for my own little Princess!

We could not find a large enough coffee table that we wanted so we decided to make our own.  We loved the Rustic X plan and thought if we put two tables toghether we could get the pefect table size for our living room.  Project cost us around $120 and it took us a week to complete, but we are happy with the results.  The color is a dark expresso.

I love this farmhouse style. It's 7'x3' and 30" high. I got the plans from Ana white. I just made a few changes.