Community Brag Posts

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.

Octagon picnic table! Built exactly to plan. This challenged my carpentry skills but I managed to pull it off all by myself. Great plans easy to follow and a great design! Would build again!

I made this garden bed in one evening. I love it! I bought 6 6' cedar fence pickets and two cedar 1x2s. I don't have a table saw, and they wouldn't rip a fence picket for me at the store, so I had to buy the cedar 1x2's but the project was still very affordable. I wanted it a little wider than the original plan, so I just cut the 6' pickets in half for the sides.
It is 6' x 3' and I didn't bother to cut the dogears off. You probably wouldn't even be able to tell they are there. I didn't trim the top out because that would add on about $6, and I like it just the way it is.
Now, lets see if I can actually grow some plants in it!!
I'm a beginner, and this project was really easy.

Check out my blog post for more on building this giant, hardworking piece! It took me about 45 hours to build it from start to finish (I work slowly) and cost about $400 in materials.

I saw the plans on Ana White website and and used them to put this together. I changed it slightly to fit my needs. I made this for my in-laws and it was a lot of fun to do. Hardest part was using blue tape on stain and paint.

This was my first project. It took me a weekend to build and prime. Since I chose to use a crackle finish, waiting time between coats extended the total time to one full week. My husband and I were supposed to make this hutch together, but I became obsessed and did most of it alone! I adjusted the size a bit to make it larger, so I could fit big pieces on shelves and in cabinets. Thanks for the plan Ana!!

Since I am in the middle of a divorce, my ex- took my dining room furniture. I decided instead of buying something new, or getting a hand me down, I would build a new table. The wood top was made of 3 wood planks from my sister in laws hardwood flooring leftovers. It was sooo fun to make this. The stain was a mix of Minwax Providence and Ebony 3 to 1 mix appx. I did not add the bottom wood piece, as I did not think it needed it, it is plenty strong without it. I am working on the bench and chairs now. This has been by far my most fulfilling project ever. Enjoy!

This was a great first project.  Thanks for the plans and the inspiration.
I needed to make a hall table so made a narrower version, and had to alter the dimensions to suit the metric system and readily available materials at Bunnings (Australia), and also made the upper and lower sections identical in height.  It ended up about 300mm deep because the shortest drawer runners I could find were 250mm. These are full extension Hafele side rails, opening 100% to make the most of the narrow depth.
The drawer fronts are from a single piece of reclaimed Oregon Pine sourced locally and then stained with various strengths of Victorian Antique Wood Dye from eBay.  The stain is natural/non-chemical and made from walnut husks - just dilute with water to the desired shade and worked well on this timber.
Thanks Ana and thanks Jamison!
 

We used cedar for these nice, little chairs and based the table on the chair model, only 24" tall, rather than the 18" of the chair seats. It took longer to cut than assemble these - total time: @4 hours for all.

Thank you, Ana!

Darin

My neighbor loaned me a shop vac and a palm sander to refinish a table, and I fell down a rabbit hole. This is the Brooke Mid-century Console Table from this site. I need to touch up paint the front, and it's not perfect, but this was my first woodworking project. I think the hardest part was wrestling with the drawer slides; I think I had to remount them three or four times. There was plenty of swearing involved with the Euro hinge as well.

I took a "Woodworking: Your Own Projects" class at the local community college, but this project was almost entirely self-taught (although I had plenty of adult supervision while learning to use the saws.)

I bought most of the materials from Building Materials Resources, a local reclaimed building supply store. And then took about a million trips to the local big box home supply stores for "just one more thing."

I had originally stained the project with Minwax Sedona Red and put some wipe-on oil-based poly on it, but the drawer fronts came out blotchy because I had used wood putty over the brad holes, so I painted those and the door brown ("Polished Mahogany" SW2838.) Then the edgebanding that I had applied on the front and stained was peeling off and looking terrible, and I didn't want to redo it.

I gave up and scuff-sanded the whole thing and painted the rest of it blue ("Still Water" SW6223.) I then applied several coats of semi-gloss spray water-based polyurethane, sanding lightly inbetween coats. I finished it off with a coat of Howards Feed N Wax and 0000 steel wool.

One tip that I have is that you can buy enormous (quart sized!) paint samples at Sherwin Williams for about $5 apiece. I used a paint sample for the brown portions, and a "real" quart of paint for the blue portion, and I cannot tell the difference in quality.

Skills learned:
Drilling pilot holes (believe it or not)
How to use the Kreg jig
How to use a miter saw
How to use a circular saw
How to use a table saw
Applying edgebanding
Applying wood filler
Staining
Building drawer boxes
Installing drawer pulls
Installing drawer slides
Installing euro-hinges (and how to use a Forstner bit)
How to use a brad nailer
How to attach table legs
Probably some other stuff that I forgot

I followed the plans as listed pretty closely. I added a 2x4 under the main shelf for extra support, and used 2x4s instead of 2x2s at the bottom, so I could have something to attach the casters to. I also opted for 1x3 braces, rather than the hinges to hold up the sides. I need to add the fence and paint it white.

I live in Japan right now and my wife and daughters went to the states to visit family for 3 weeks. I decided to make a few projects. I went to my local home improvement store (HOMES), which is a combo of Lowes, Walmart, a pet store, and a furniture store rolled into one crazy store. I purchased the wood for about 11000 yen, paint for 1080 yen, hinges 800 yen, and door knobs for 2880 yen. Grand total of basically $200. I found that it is not cheap to buy supplies over here. I modified the plan and made 16 "drawers" instead of 20 due to the height of the space where I am putting the table. I used the plan for finishing with the distressed coffee stain. I really like it in our room.

My kids needed a step stool and I had some scrap wood (2x10) left over from a previous project

This was made using Ana's "Garage Shelf" plans. I modified it for a corner spot between two exiting cabinets, so it took a bit of thought, but the Ana's technique for the build made it so easy.
AND I used up scrap wood that I'd been hording in the garage for the build.
Thank you Ana!