Community Brag Posts

This was my first real project. The plan was easy to follow. I'm on the short side, so I raised the back of the seat up 4 inches to make it easier to get out of. They are so comfortable and everyone loves them.

Lisa

I followed Ana's plans as written. However, I couldn't find a locking hinge the comments suggested. I will keep on the look-out for this though. I used 3/4" hardwood and had Blue do all the cuts for me. Easy-peasy. I painted the whole thing with left-over paint and then randomly taped off stripes using more leftovers and then protected everything with a coat of poly. Finally, I used a double layer of quilt batting and 100% cotton fabric to upholster one of the leaves for use as an ironing board. Literally finished this today, so I haven't had a chance to use it, but I'm so excited with how it turned out!

My (excited!) first time building a piece for someone else. This table was made as a housewarming gift for some awesome friends. Many people contributed to material cost and my husband and I put it together.

The table is made out of all cedar to deal with the southern rain and sun (we haven't had a dry day since we delivered it a month ago, so you get a wet but sunny picture - yay hurricane season)

We modified the plans to incorporate two planter buckets for icing drinks and such. This required us to make two longitudinal frames instead of the one used in the original plans. We spaced the frames just enough to fit the planters down in them, then added short 1x2s between them to support the planters. Before boarding the top 2x6s together, I made rough cuts for the openings. When it was all together, my husband used a 2" router bit to clean up the edges of the holes.

Made the 8 foot FancyX benches to have as much seating room as possible for lots of friends and family. Looking forward to using it more when the weather dries up a little.

Ended up making mine 8x4 to fit between 2 windows on the side of the house. I put in a paver base and then built a 2x4 floor with three quarter inch plywood. 

I drew everything our first so I knew what to order from HD. I followed the plans basically but used 2x4s in the frame of the walls and back. I just used plywood on the back wall. We also can't get cedar fence planks in south Florida, only 6 ft pine pickets, so I made due. 

The roof I had to measure once the frame was up, just to be sure.  Also used a 2x6 as the cross brace on the front...wanted to make sure it was strong enough to prevent the doors from pulling in and sagging, since they're bigger. 

Tools:. Pocket hole jig is a must. And I did this completely solo, so air nailers were a 100% must. Frame nailer and Brad nailer with various size nails. I still may add angled brace 2x4 across the top interior to hold the square. Shingled the roof and added a little $9 solar powered light bulb, with a little panel wired to the roof. Works well. Still needs sealed and shingles trimmed but I get a lot of compliments on this thing. Turned out very impressive. 

Cost of everything.....around $400. Time, doing it solo seriously took like 3 days...probably about 25 hours for everything excluding paver base. 

Weekend project.

This project started with the pallet coffee cart plan and morphed into what we called "a little blood adds to the flavor" as we did lose a little in those darn nails from the removal of the pallets....however my hubby lovingly slapped some duct tape on my wound and we continued on til we wound up with our version of the pallet cart table....total cost...$70.00 for those pesky all metal roller caster wheels...we did modify and using extra 1x2 as supports on the underside...just cause I think he likes to really mess with drills and such!! I did rust out some rosehead nails I had that we used to secure the woods together...kept with the antique theme.

I chose to bri-wax the table....which by the way I need to polish it up again...its been a year since its been completed and as you know here in Alaska you use summer to work and build and winter to clean and build....at least in my house...the end tables are almost completed...same type format...just need to make a few adjustments regarding those grooves and then I need to find that pesky bri-wax and burnishing brush I put away last year....and of course cant find....lol please ignore foil and tacky blue moving blanket...cats love to lay on microfiber chair and shed....sorry!

our next project...well it was a 10 foot grim reaper for halloween...which was a diy project from another site...will be placed on our front deck tonite/tomorrow probably for the haunters that never come...

future projects are: pallet board mini sofa/loveseat from ana trip to georgia for my living room to go with the tables and a pallet board ladder type stand for our optima projecter and all the wiring I wish to hide....think primitive stepladder with glass shelves and lots of discount leafy things to hide the wires....on to wood work and more blood to spill!! thanks for the originals I love that it only cost me 70 bucks vs 1000 that I saw in a spendy place back in the lower 48....

This was my first table project. I needed additional desktop space in my home office. This table was easy to build.

This was my first attempt after finding the site. I was so happy with the ease of the plans and the way it turned out i made the dining table

My first build! Very simple and straightforward. I chose to not have the bench raised off the ground; however, the legs were cut at the same length as the plans, so my shoe storage is a little taller than the plans, giving me more room for boots.

If I was to do it again, I would not use 1x3's for the lower cross boards, instead I would use 1x4's to match the upper cross boards so there's some symmetry, since it just sits on the floor rather than being raised up.

The build itself took me about 3 hours, which seems like a lot for something this simple, but again, it was my first build, first time using the Kreg Jig (love it!!), and it took me a while to deal with my less-than-perfect boards.

The hardest (and longest) part of this project was the painting! I have alway just used wood stain when I have refinished furniture, but I decided to go with white Rustoleum primer followed with 2 coats of Rustoleum paint, and finished off with a coat of Rustoleum lacquer. The paint was very thick and even with a $20 paint brush it did not go on evenly--it was a huge source of irritation! I also decided to use decorative hinges on the exterior rather than slim hinges on the inside.

I needed a place to store towels and other items in my bathroom. This was the perfect project for this. I have friends begging me to make one for them. Not too hard and it definitely does the job!

I built this table from your Farmhouse table plans for my friends.  They did the fabulous job of staining it.

Great site!

Simple Cedar Fence Picket Lemonade Stand

Our fancy x table and bench

Why an octagon shape? I wanted a round table and my husband wanted square, so we met in the middle and built this! Very easy and fun to build!

Hi Ana,

My wife and I wanted to creat a caboose bunk bed for our boys.  When we saw the cabin bed plans we loved the look for the caboose.  We used your plans as a guide and made a few modifications.  We are really happy with how it turned out!  It just needs a ladder and maybe some train wheels.  Thanks for sharing your wonderful ideas. They have inspired us!

Travis and Krista Lundell

I loved the simplicity of this project. I scaled down the original size, to make the 1x3's 33 inches high by 22 inches wide. I also went with my kreg jig set at 1/2" and used 1" screws. I did this because I cracked the first board without even blinking when the kreg jig was set to a depth of 3/4", using 1 1/4" screws.