I made the table and then added a box with a top to it for a sandbox sand table.
I made the end table a little taller than the instructions and the top boards further apart for rain to fall thru, then drilled a hole so it can be used as an umbrella stand too!
This is my first build ever...except for a rad cd rack I built in 8th grade shop class. My husband and I
So it all started when my amazingly crafty friend Lee built a toy kitchen for her kids. I was so impressed and started looking up other people's diy kitchens. So then I was searching for something totally different and saw the play kitchen on Ana's website (love it), and I got totally addicted and decided I was going to build a dining room table, because we have been using a hand-me-down brown card table and chairs from the 70's since we got married. (How's that for a run-on sentence?) I wasn't sure if my husband would take me very seriously, but after I showed him this website, I started noticing him on it all the time. He's more addicted than I am!
Fast forward some time and we decided to start with the spa bench as a warm-up. Once we are in a house with our own garage (God willing in the next few months), we plan on tackling the Farmhouse Table. Anyway, when we took the kids to Gma and Gpa's, my father-in-law got really excited that there were going to be carpenters in the family, and he took us out to the garage to show us all his tools that we could use.
We had to buy all of the wood, screws, sand paper, stain, polyurethane, and a paint brush since it was our first project, so it ended up costing about $85. At least now we have a lot of supplies left over for our future projects! We had
This is probably a weekend project if you count the staining and finisher. The actual building part only took us three or four hours (please don't laugh at us if that's painfully slow), but we actually took about two weeks to finish it because we have rain, no garage, and three kids under 19 months. And we weren't really in a hurry. Anyway, it was fun. We like to build. Thanks, Ana, for inspiring us and for making it doable for so many people! We think you're neat.
This was the first furniture DIY project for my wife and I. We loved the look of the original farmhouse bedside table plans but they were bigger than what we needed at the moment and didn't want to try to cram them into our room. The mini plans were exactly what we needed. For a first time build, I am pleased with the results and we ended up spending about $75 plus the cost of stain for the two tables. Similar, all-wood night stands run around $200 per table so it doesn't get much better than that. We opted for the Minwax Dark Walnut stain.
Sun, 05/17/2015 - 19:43
I built my mini farmhouse beside table last year as my second build. Did you use a brush or rag while staining? Every time I use dark walnut I get a much darker color, and yours came out perfect for a project I'm going to start soon.
Hi Ana! This project was pretty much inspired by ALL the great things you build on this site, as well as from watching a 'Fixer Upper' marathon (hence, the white color and shiplap). Last Christmas, I promised my sister that I'd build her a hall tree since she's now up to 10 grandkids and needed more hooks for all those coats and hats. Unfortunately, I also came down with a WICKED case of vertigo, so no power tools for yours truly. : (
Well... The vertigo finally cleared up, so it was time to get out my trusty ol' Kreg Jig and fire up the tools.
This project started with 2 4x4s. I cut 17 1/2" off each, then used the long pieces as the back and the sort pieces as the front legs. Then I built a rectangle (shored up by some cross supports) out of 2x3s and used those to attach the back legs together with pocket holes. I did the same thing with the 2 front legs, then attached the 2 sets of legs together with shorter pieces of 2x3s that framed up the side.
Next, I added a front to back support to the underside, and then attached the bottom of the seat on top of that. I built the front, back, and side pieces of the bench section by cutting a couple of 8' x 8" x .5" planks to size, and attached 2 pieces to each side by gluing and nailing them to the frame. Then, I rans some shiplap up the back (glued and nailed to the back frame) and topped it all off with a mantle.
For the seat, I used a 12" project board ($11 at Lowes for a 6 foot section) because I love all the knotty details and nail marks. I framed it out with 1x1 and attached with pocket screws on the underside. I finished that piece by staining it in Rustoleum Dark Walnut.
As for the rest, I just framed the shiplap section with leftover 1x1s, then sanded and stained the whole piece with the same Dark Walnut stain (so that something would show through after distressing). Finally, I applied 2 coats of Rustoleum Linen White Chalk Paint (LOVE that stuff!), distressed it, and topped with one coat of Minwax 1 Coat Poly (ALSO love that stuff), and added some hardware and country do dads from Hobby Lobby (Rustic Hooks, 'Bless This Home' Sign, Decorative Doorknob, and "Mitten Clip" for wet mittens and gloves coming off little hands) . What do you think? ヅ
Put a fancy twist in this tabletop and bench top. We like the 45 degree angles that the top and legs both have to compliment each other. The top is stained with minwax special walnut.
Tue, 11/16/2021 - 19:18
You've been busy, this is gorgeous all the way around!
This is my daughters new bed. We modified the plans to fit what we wanted. I added drawers to the stairs. Then put shelves behind the stairs. Added doors so we can hide the shelves. We used rope lights inside to add light with her own light switch.
PS Don't mind the date on the pictures. Forgot to change the date.
I was looking for a plan to build a miter saw cart but also wanted to include my table saw.
I was leery about making a permanent station for the miter saw in case in needed to move the saw for an inside trim job so I made the miter portion of workstation portable.
Thank you for these plans Ana! Had to make mine 36" wide to accomodate the tree stand tripod. Added bonus: kitty cannot drink the tree water! YES! Still have to stain and going to add hinges to one side to access water bucket easily.
Thu, 12/14/2017 - 09:56
That was fast! Looks great, love that it keeps the cat away too!
My version of the Simple Outdoor Dining Table
- All Cedar
I absolutely love the way these turned out! I drew up an example in Sketch-up using Ana's plans for the Simple Nightstand as a starting point.
This took me longer to build than I expected -- maybe because I was working from scraps and had to figure out what would fit where along the way. Also, I initially cut all the side pieces with parallel cuts. Oops. So I had to re-do them all.
For more info, check out my blog post!
I made the back slats taller on the second chair (salmon colored one) so I could just lay my head back. They were so easy and I can't believe I did this myself! We made the baby chair with the scraps and our grandbabies love it!
First stab at this table turned out so well a friend bought it off me and I had to build a second.
Dear Ana White,
I was looking for an inexpensive shed to build and saw your lean to. I love it and get many complements. Thanks for your site and what you do.
When I saw another builder's little bathroom tower in the brag blog last week, I knew I needed one for my powder room! Ever since we installed a pedestal sink several years ago, we've had nowhere to put extra toilet paper. With this little tower, that problem is (finally) solved!
I built it will materials I had on hand. Oak plywood I ripped to 11" for the sides and shelves, 1x2 pine for the face frame, and a variety of pine for the top glued and screwed together with my Kreg jig.
The only purchase I made for this tower was the two fabric baskets from Target for about $12, I think. The fact that they fit is not a happy accident -- I built the unit around the basket dimensions.
While it is inspired by Ana's storage tower plans, I definitely went out on my own to make it work with the materials I had lying around.
LOVed building and painting this. Although using European wood is a headache as of course the standard wood sizes are different. ... always 4-6 mm off... so all my things are crooked. I don't care though and it is my new favorite chair. I used ArchiTect blue exerior color, two coats, and pine wood.
I am grateful for Ana White's metric conversion chart in the book I now have but when going to the hardware store here, I am confronted with numerous standard wood sizes that are not the same as in the US!
So I bought a tv for our bedroom rather spur of the moment last year and when I decided I didn't to wall mount it I needed a console for the tv to sit. This was going to be my 3rd build and I had recently made the Mini Farmhouse Bedside table. I modified the Mini bedside plans to make the console a larger two drawer style. I also increased the height by about 2" to put the tv at a better viewing angle. I didn't know that there was a similar plan in Ana's book at the time, as it probably would have been easier to just follow that. Oh well.
This is a pretty easy project and makes a nice holiday gift. This version was made from a scrap piece of hardwood and a 5/8" dowel. As an extra touch, I added a compartment inside the board to store the pieces. The compartment panel is held on with magnets for a clean look.
The quick video shows how the compartment works.
