Community Brag Posts
The Carb Cupboard
Anther creation of my own but this would easily be created from Ana's plans for this wall shelf. There isn’t much cupboard storage in our kitchen so when friends gave us a sideboard they didn’t have use for & it fit perfectly in one of our kitchen’s oddly spaced corners we were thrilled. It became our “Toasting Station” where the toaster & Panini grill are. I decided that we needed matching shelving to house our “Carbs” since it was much easier to make toast & sandwiches when the bread was right above the toasting implements.
Planked Wood Sideboard
This was my first build from this site! It took me about a month working on-and-off during my toddler's nap time. I thought this project was very accessible for a beginner--or, in my case, a distracted mom who is six months pregnant. I scaled down the plans to fit my dining nook, but I forgot to account for a half width of face framing when I subtracted so my third door hole came out a little narrow. I decided to just put open shelves in odd-sized middle opening. I used euro cabinet hinges instead of the butt hinge style because they are more adjustable for not-so-perfect openings/doors. I bought a 1 3/8" Forstner bit to drill the hinge mortises. I was intimidated by the hinges & drawer glides but that part went surprisingly well! I used a plastic template to locate the cup handles on the drawer faces--that purchase was definitely worth a couple of bucks! I wish I had borrowed a router to make a rabbet for the door panels, but I got impatient & just tacked them on. I also wished I had replaced or sharpened the blade on my circular saw because it chewed up the plywood making long cuts. (There's a lot of wood filler on those plywood edges. I ended up painting the shelves with leftover interior latex because they looked like a dog attacked them.) There are also a few shims under the drawer glides to correct the width, but oh well, you can't see them :) Before my next project, I am going to get a couple right angle clamps and make sure I buy the BIG box of pocket hole screws!
Comments
Tue, 07/05/2016 - 10:01
Planked Wood Sideboard
Emily -
Love your version of the sideboard! I need to downsize Ana's plans! What is the overall length of your version??
Tue, 01/16/2018 - 02:51
Planked sideboard
Hi Emily! Can you please provide the size and cuts you made? This looks great!
Leaning wall desk/bookshelf
Using only scraps from all my other projects, I modified Ana's plans to create this workspace in the house we just moved into. I changed the dimensions of the shelves to take advantage of the materials I had on hand. Additionally, though I have a lot of different things on the shelves in this picture, I'll be using the shelves more for books and reference materials, so I needed standard shelf sizes. Though this is a simple design, cutting some of the angles and installing the shelves was a bit tricky, therefore I think this is more of an intermedite project. I also added 2x4 legs to support my Mac. Can't have that tumbling to the ground!
Simple Small Trestle Desk
This project was my first woodworking attempt ever! I had some assistance when it came to technique and how to use tools from my awesome uncle. I did shorten the length by 3 inches due to the space I had in my home, nothing else was changed. Overall I was able to complete the whole thing mostly on my own, I am so excited and love the way it turned out!
29B-2 Clouds Arising in eggshell finish
Comments
Tryed Side Table
This was my first project using an Ana White plan. I thought the plans were easy to understand and follow which made the project go smooth. I am a fan of painted and distressed furniture so I went with that look for this project. After painting the tables I used a hand sander to scuff up the corners and then added "worm holes" using a hammer and nail.
Ken's Salsa Console
First Project...Used pine for the base and oak for the top to match home counter top.
Side Street goes Shabby Chic
We sanded, stained, painted, and distressed the wood before building. That was truly the most time consuming part. The plans were great and everything went together smoothly! We decided to take off the top 2 planks from the footboard, and used those as the side rail. We created the ladder from what we had on hand.
Paint- Paint left from our kitchen ceiling
Distressed with electric hand sander
Comments
Christmas Figures made from Pallets
I chose to adjust the great design to have a free standing tree with backing and a live bark base. Fun project.
Seesaw
This was a pretty quick and easy project. My third one from this site, as well as being my third one ever. We rented a mitre saw to cut the wood (and cut wood for a few more projects we had on the go at the same time), and then it was just a matter of staining it and putting it together. The staining and waiting for it to dry actually took a couple of weeks, mostly because we don't have a lot of room to do that, so couldn't do it all at once, and it wouldn't stop raining. Once we actually had that done, drilling and assembling only took 2-3 hours at most. (Maybe even less, but hard to judge as I had two children helping the whole time.)
I've put a video of it in use on my blog as well. :)
Atomic Credenza
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
Maple Chest
Curly maple blanket chest with teak top for daughter’s Christmas.
Simple Outdoor Bench
My sister wanted this to go with the Simple Outdoor Chairs I had built her for her birthday. I added a 2x4 between each leg to make it more stable and shortened it by one slat to fit the cushion. This was very easy to build and would make a great beginner project.
First Console table!
I started this project without a cutting table or any kind of shop set up. I used a burnt out tree as my makeshift cutting table. With only hand tools I used Ana Whites blueprints from her website to do this whole table, the directions were very easy to
follow and very helpful.
House Bed
Took a canopy bed plan but made it to look like a house for my grandson.
He loves it!
Variation of Simple Bunk Bed Plans
I used the Simple Bunk Bed plans as a rough guide for the sizing of this twin over twin bunk bed plans. Bed is made out of solid oak that I sourced locally for free and planed down the oak slabs. There are a number of variations, but the sizing helped tremendously in putting my plans together.
Custom Children's Chair
Child's chair. I used wormy maple
Love our Small Easy Rustic X-Bench!
I have been redoing furniture for quite some time, but had never actually thought of making my own furniture, until I ran across Ana's blog. Now I am so addicted! My husband is very handy with his tools and can follow plans fairly easily (unlike me) so I definitely had to enlist his help with this project. We are stationed overseas in Germany so our project costs us a bit more than it would have if we were stateside, but still quite a bit cheaper than purchasing the similar one at Pottery Barn.Since it was our first project it did take us a bit longer than normal, but still easy enough to do. I absolutely love how this turned out and now my husband and I are ready for our next project of a rustic console table that we made our own plans for.
Butcher Block Kitchen Island
I built this from Ana's plans with some slight modifications. The top is built from hard maple and is an edge grain butcher block. I sealed the top with mineral oil and beeswax. The finish is distressed calypso blue. I also added 3" locking and swiveling casters.