Community Brag Posts

My son was about to turn 3 and I really wanted to redesign his bedroom as a birthday surprise. We went with a Toy Story themed room, he just loves Toy Story. I started off by painting the walls blue with yellow stars like Andy's room in the movie. I added some custom painted art work and then it was off to find a cool playhouse bed. My husband and I were shopping around and we could never really find what we were looking for in the store. So we decided to build one ourselves using plans from this website. I used the playhouse loft bed and the playhouse loft bed stair plans, for the bed and the stairs. I used the castle loft bed plan as inspiration for the slide. The project took us about 5 weeks from start to finish. We both have full time jobs and we did most of the work on the weekends. I looked at each plan very carefully and made notes. I had to modify the stair plans slightly to fit the space where we wanted to put the bed. The stairs look narrow, but they work just fine. My husband and I can both use them to get up in the bed. The stairs feature hinged stair tread with built in storage. We built them like that at first, but then later decided to make them stationary stair treads, with plywood. I didn't like the way the hinges looked and the top stair was so deep that I was worried my son would fall in there and get stuck. The storage idea was neat, but his safety was more important to me. The bed turned out really nice and VERY sturdy. Both my husband and I are able to get up there with my son (not at the same time). Another modification that I made was instead of slats to hold on the mattress, I used a piece of plywood. I wanted the roof in the playhouse to look finished, and I didn't want to see his bedding hanging down from the slats. I painted the top of the plywood white, where the mattress goes to blend in with the slats, and the other side was painted blue to match the walls inside the playhouse. I did modify the playhouse front facade to have 2 windows and one door. I like the symmetrical look. The total project cost about $400. I used birch plywood and select pine boards, and about 6 quarts of paint. I noticed AFTER we had finished the bed using the birch plywood, that Home Depot had cabinet grade plywood on a random end cap, that was just as nice for $12 less a sheet. If I could do it all over again, I would definitely use that!. I wanted the paint to have a nice smooth finish, without having to do a lot of sanding or patching. We had Home Depot cut the plywood to the dimensions we needed. I had my husband cut the rest of the wood dimensions listed in the plans, and then I painted all of them before we put the pieces together. I used a small roller and self priming paint. The paint finish looks great. After assembling the bed I can not imagine what I would have gone through trying to paint it after the fact. The slide was a bit tricky, I looked at the plan for the castle loft bed and attempted to use those dimensions, and for the most part they worked. But when we went to assemble the slide, we did end up recutting some of the wood to different dimensions. I used a piece of the melamine coated closet shelf material for the slide. It is already finished in white and its nice and slick, like a slide should be! I hate MDF, but for this it seemed the best fit. We cut the top edge at an angle to meet up with the slide platform. PLEASE BE CAREFUL with this material. After it was angle cut the edge was razor sharp and I sliced my fingers up. Once it was installed it butted up perfectly to the slide platform, and the edge was hidden and not a danger. But use caution during the install. Clamps are your friend! We used Kreg clamps for everything. They kept the wood in place while we were screwing the parts together. The coolest thing that my husband came up with was clamping two identical pieces for plywood together, and drawing the template for the slide support walls. Then he used his circular saw to cut them out. We ended up with two mirror image pieces. They looked awesome. I left them clamped together when I sanded the edges as well. We really didn't have any building experience other, than building tables and chairs for children, We got the deluxe Kreg jig kit and a miter saw on Craigslist for $50 each and they were both practically brand new. This was the first time we had ever used a Kreg jig and we are both addicted. That thing is the bomb. We locked my son out of his room for a week while we assembled everything. We had the big reveal at his birthday party and all of the guests were excited to see it after seeing my facebook teaser posts of our progress. There were 8 kids up there at one time and the bed did not budge. They all enjoyed the slide. I did the planning and paint and my husband did an awesome job making all of the cuts and sanding everything. We are both very proud of the final product. My son love his new big boy bed. DISCLAIMER: This bed is not recommended for a child under 6 years old. My son is mature for his age and we monitor him carefully.

A little bit of a different project for me.  My husband concocted a plan to build his own bass speaker cabinets to take to band gigs.  Wanted them to be lightweight and easy to carry.  He bought the speakers, grates, ports, cable jacks, corner bumpers, and handles.  I built the boxes :)

Built out of two sheets of half-inch birch plywood and coated with Duratex speaker cabinet texture coating for wear resistance.

Reclaimed this wood from a >100 year old home that was being renovated. The plans were from www.akadesigns.ca

I built this stove for a close family friend for her 3rd birthday. For the burners I used heart shaped wooden cutouts. I also added her first name initial to the backboard as well.

Built this pallet christmas tree for decorating the house during the season, nothing too difficult, just cut/paint/assemble.

After my wife pinned the triple pedestal table, I took a look at the plans and redid them for a double pedestal table 78"x40". This is the first wood project that I have done in close to 12 years, it was good to get back to wood and I look forward to builing some more.

This 7 ft fancy x farmhouse table was built as an anniversary gift for some close friends, so they'd have a dining table large enough for their blended family.

Modifications to original plans

I shortened the top to 84" long, widened the top to 40"wide, and the (outside edge to outside edge) of the legs / supports to 60". This left plenty of room for a chair on each end. The diagonal support brace cuts were not modified.

Instead of pine, I used kiln-dried Douglas fir 2x4s for legs / supports. My local lumberyard sells in 8 ft pieces for well under $10 each. I rifled through the racks to find a bunch of straight, virtually knot free (ie clear) ones.

For the top, I sourced Clear Mixed Grain (CMG) Douglas Fir. Four 10 ft 2x12s were over $250 delivered. Not cheap! But they were straight and flat. No messing around with racked or warped big box stuff this time!

I ripped them down to 10" wide with a good table saw, rip fence, and fresh 60 tooth blade. I did not cut to 7 ft length immediately. Rather, I cut down to a few inches over that (more on that in a moment). I used the Kreg jig to drill pocket hole screws underneath, but I used Titebond III wood glue and pipe clamps / 5' galvanized pipes (6 of them, in alternating directions) to clamp the top together. I added 2" coarse thread blue-coated pocket hole screws the next day - really more for peace of mind.

To cut down to 84" length, I marked the lines with a straightedge & carpenter's pencil. I then used my circular saw (also with a fresh 60 tooth high quality blade) and a straight edge clamped to the wood as a guide. This gives you nice smooth end cuts without the worry of lining everything up perfectly during glue-up. Warning - you can splinter the ends if you aren't careful.

Sanding

I used a cheap Harbor Freight belt sander with 80 and 120 grit (be careful if you've never used a belt sander before, especially with coarse grits!) to even out the top and bottom. It didn't take much, luckily. (I bought a planer *after* completing this piece).

All cuts were sanded 60, 80, 100, 150, 220, 320 and 400 grit. Lesson learned: in the future its okay to stop at 220 or so. Sanding was done with a basic Dewalt quarter-sheet sander, with a 3m rubber hand sanding block, and plain ole-sandpaper in my hand. I shaped all edges by hand with 100/150/220.

Nails & Glue

I used a pneumatic nailer and Titebond III wood glue on the legs and supports, then a nail punch and wood filler to hide any nail holes. The aprons / stretchers were fastened with pocket hole screws and glue. I used plugs on the lower one, as it is more visible. The plugs are pretty much seamless - use glue and wood filler and sand out, nobody will ever be able to tell :)

A Quick Word on Wood Glue Selection

Many of the project plans on this site (and brag posts) mention the use of expanding glues like Gorilla Wood Glue, Elmer's Carpenter's Glue etc. These long open-time adhesives are easy to work with but they expand and are not as strong as Titebond.

Stain & Poly

I used a clean rag (cut up an old t shirt..) to apply a generous coat of Minwax wood conditioner, wiping off any excess after about 15 min. I then immediately applied a coat of Minwax Dark Walnut stain. I used stain applicator pads but a good rag works just fine and wiped off excess after 10 or 15 minutes.

The top received 2 coats, the second coat applied a week later.

2 coats of Minwax fast dry polyurethane were applied via brush (high quality natural bristle brush). I lightly sanded with 220 after the 1st coat was fully dried, and with 320 after the second. Semi gloss was used for the 3rd and final coat. If I had a 'do over', I would have used wipe on poly and thinned with mineral spirits to eliminate brush marks more effectively. OR I would have used a foam roller (still thinning a coat or two with mineral spirits).

Important: I applied a single coat of poly to the underside of the table as well. Coating the entire piece stabilizes the wood, according to a few articles. This means its less likely to shrink or swell unevenly over time.

Attaching the Top

In Ana's / Shanty 2 Chic's original plans, there are comments from people wondering how to attach the table top to the supports. Originally, I planned on drilling through the sandwiched 2x4 supports and deeply counterinking screws. You can buy a surprisingly decent countersink drill bit set at Harbor Freight for very little money. You could also use something like 3M velcro tape. Either way, you would be able to separate the top from the legs for transport. If you do use Titebond III to glue it down, I'm confident it will never come off.

This is my first brag post and only my 4th completed DIY furniture project, so please LMK if I've forgotten to cover any important details.

Dan Gendreau
S Kingstown, RI

Fun weekend project! I had never tried pocket hole joins before. The Kreg jig worked out great. Looking forward to trying a bigger coffee table in this same style. Thanks for the plans!

We needed somewhere to store shoes and sit while changing shoes, so I built this based on the flip top storage bench plans at http://ana-white.com/2012/10/plans/flip-top-storage-bench-new-plans

Total length of the project was 6 feet, so I added a 1x3 support at the middle. I made the storage top deeper so that it would hold adult shoes by using 1x6s instead of 1x4s.

I made the top into two "doors" so that they would be smaller and easier for our children to handle. I also rounded off the front edge with my router to make it easier on bottoms and shins.

My son was in a pirate mood and needed a ship to help sail the high seas.  So I built him one.  I added maps, used magnetic paint for the waves so that we could put fish magnets on them, and then a wheel from a playhouse kit from Home Depot.  

Dog crate / end table built from the plans on your site. Customer chose Early American Miniwax finish. This was a fun build. Thank you! -j.

This was a great project to get back into woodworking after many years of not building anything. Used my table saw for cutting the 30 degree miters. Plans didn't call for it, but I made dado joints for the shelves using a router. This made the bookcase very solid. For the miters I cut them first and then measured and cut the piece to the finished length. I cut the vertical shelf supports after the shelves were in which insured they were the exact length. A great suggestion is to use The Hillman Group "Procrafter" #8 x 2-in Yellow Zinc Square-Drive Wood Screws. The #2 square drive never slipped out and the screws were self drilling and countersunk themselves. No need to predrill a countersink hole or anything else. Added the chimney after seeing it on another brag post. This cute little item brought a big smile to my granddaughter's face on Christmas morning. The time investment of 10 hours for me was due to rusty woodworking skills and needing time to think about things. Could probably build the next one in five hours. Painting took as long as the building.

My wife wanted something to fill up a large wall in our kitchen so I designed a collage centered over a buffet table. I used the plans from the Salsa Console that I found on this website for the table. I had to modify the plans quite a bit in order for the table to fit the space that we had. After I had the design the way I wanted it, my wife and I found the frames that we needed and painted them with a black, brown,  and terquoise theme. I built the hutch using pine that I bought from the hardware store. I used quarter round moulding strips to accentuate the drawer faces and the cabinet doors. I added glass to the center of the cabinet doors and then backed the glass with the material from one of those cheap ceiling light panels to give the glass a 3D frosted appearance. I then painted the interior of the cabinets with that same terquoise color and ran lights inside the cabinets so that the terquiose color would show through the forsted glass. I finished the table off by staining it with a dark red maple stain (to match our kitchen table and island) and then added a few simple drawer/cabinet knobs. Everything came together nicely when we hung it all up over the table. Now all we have left to do is add our pictures to the frames.

Very easy and fun project. Thank you so much for the inspiration and plan.