Community Brag Posts

Built this to replace a cheap picnic table that I had bought. The table is solid and a great first project for me Pops. The grandkids will enjoy this one and Gammy has me already building #2 table. Thank you for the plans and your expertise.

We've been talking about making this for quite some time now, probably close to 6 months. Mostly because we've never made anything before we kept putting it off. We had a free weekend and decided that we needed to complete this project that's been hanging out there for way too long. We'd researched where to get the wood, and what we wanted, but still did a little more planning. Thursday night we went to the big orange box and checked out their options for 2x4s, plywood and moulding. Friday I went to our local Ace lumber yard and looked at their options.

Friday night we decided to get the 2x4's and plywood from Home... the big orange box since their plywood was much more level. We paid a little more for the grade A plywood, but didn't want MDF as it will disintegrate when it gets wet. Not planning on getting things wet, but just want to be sure.

We got the moulding at the local supply store along with screws by the pound and corner brackets.

As you can see in one of the photos, we had the store cut the plywood for us as we didn't have access to a table saw. We borrowed and used a compound mitre chop saw for the rest of the cuts. Since we had so much leftover plywood and really liked the look of Sausha's wider pillars, we decided to go with facing out the front and left side (the only ones visible in our location) and columns and put moulding on the front and one back leg showing. For the moulding we only faced the back and right leg with two pieces. In hind sight as the pedestal doesn't go against the wall we could have gone all the way around, but that might have added another weekend.

Saturday we started out getting the rest of the necessary wood, laying out the boards and deciding how we wanted to proceed. We ended up following the directions and not making any changes to it. The only change I thought about making was to take the 2x4's all the way to the ground rather than mount them on the bottom decking. We decided since this has been made quite a few times and haven't seen any bad reports, we'd stick to the plan.

Saturday we worked about 9 hours total putting everything together, facing out the project and filling the screw holes with wood putty. My only regret at this point is that I didn't fill the top edge of the faced plywood all the way across with putty. In order to get a much cleaner look, if I were to do it again I'd have bought a tub of wood putty and filled the entire edge to eliminate any holes or spaces from the edge of the plywood and the seam between the face and decking.

Sunday we started out by sanding the wood putty down, reapplying where needed, sanding the rest of the rough edges flat, and then started on moulding. The moulding took a better part of the day to get the angles right, and thankfully we had the compound chop saw that would do greater than 45 degree angles. We glued and nailed the moulding down, and then took the project into the garage to paint as it was getting late on Sunday. Three coats of paint smoothed out all the edges. Be careful about drips on the corners. We decided to go with something other than 1)trying to match the washer/dryer and 2) black as it might attract too much lint and show. In the pictures it's actually a lot more purple than in real life, but it's a gray paint with a tint of color to it, Behr premium primer and paint in one.

We put the stand in place Monday evening, although the paint was still slightly tacky. The hardest part about the end was getting the washer and dryer up and hooked up. We needed to put the washer up first and connect it as the hookups were behind the dryer and no way we could have connected it with the dryer in place.

We love it! It's raised the washer and dryer up to a decent level, saved us at least $350, and now have room to put baskets underneath. The whole thing rattles quite a bit when the washer spins up, but so does the house and the TV stand 2 rooms away...

Due to a few bad cuts, we ended up having to get an additional strip of moulding. If you're not experienced in doing moulding, plan on a LOT of waste. ;)

Our next project needs to be a matching recycling center which will go right next to this.

Modified from the plans for the simple day bed - link - http://ana-white.com/2009/12/plans-simple-daybed.html

Another visit from my friend Lisa and her miter saw - this time we were joined by my daughter Claudia. We changed the height of your indoor day bed from 31" posts to 44" posts in order to have enough height for people to lean back.

We used cedar so this can be left outside year round (I'm in Toronto, Canada). The lightweight foam single mattress can easily be removed.

Thanks for the plans!

My first project.

The wire shelves that the builder placed were not cutting it for storage. This setup from your plan helped garner so much more space for organizing. The pantry is roughly 54”x 35” and we were able to place five shelves instead of the four. Thank you so much for your assistance!

These are the first pieces of furniture I have ever built. The first bed was a project for my daughter and me only, but we let the guys help on the second bed. I copied the finish described by the blog. Everyone was real doubtful that it would work, but it turned out great. My sons love their new beds!

Castle bed

Thanks for the great plan Ana! Super cute addition to our bathroom!

I really needed a kitchen island. That would work for me & last.
We, my husband & I, based our plan off of the Easy Kitchen Island Plans. I printed the plans. Then modified a few items. Originally I was gonna do a 4ftx25" but my butcher block we found was 6ft. So we left it with 6ft. My barstools slip under the overhang so kids can pull them out & use when needed but not be in the way.
We also made it custom to my height for mixing & kneading dough. The selves are different to work.with my tupperware containers. (Goal is to get all the same eventually).
We used cedar & a little pine for the main structure. The top is European walnut butcher block.
It's on wheels. So I can move it out of the way if needed.
We did seal the sides (kids & messy cook). The shelves & top I used butcher block oil & conditioner. Ever month I add a thin coat of conditioner to the top.
I love that I have so much room now to create.
Thank you so much for the inspiration!
Faith & Jonathan Flesher

We finished the deck this summer and wanted a large table to put on it. I saw the different versions of the outdoor Ana built. This one seats eight and has a tile inlay. For now...chairs from Walmart provide seating.

Simple project to do with the kids.

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4EDpDPf6DI

Instructions:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Pallet-Wood-Painting/

I liked the look of the spacers on the bottom shelf, but decided to leave them out since I just wanted to be done with this project :) I modified the plans to only have one shelf, as well as feet on the bottom (instead of having the piece go completely to the floor). As a result of adding the feet, the bottom is framed with 1x2s instead of 1x4s. I needed to purchase 6 1x2s to do that (but only needed 3 1x4s). I attempted to miter the cuts on those pieces...wood filler came to the rescue in the end. This was a lot of fun to make!

Super easy vase holder adds a fun element!

I am in process of making these for my new twin nephews. By reducing the width of the toy box by 1/2", I was able to fit two of the open top toy boxes on one sheet of cabinet grade plywood ($30).

For Two Toy Boxes cut plywood to the following dimensions (see photo for layout):

2 - 32 x 15 1/2 pieces (bottoms)
4 - 33 1/2 x 15 1/2 (front and back)
4 - 15 1/2 x 15 1/2 (sides)

My local Home Depot does not charge for cutting the plywood and the person that was assisting me made absolutely perfect cuts and helped direct me to the cabinet grade plywood (which was located away from the plywood aisle), thus saving me an extra $15.

Boxes took approximately 2-3 hours each to build, another hour to sand and fill screw holes, and several hours to paint.

Photo is of Dexter's toy box. Dante's looks very similar. My 2 year old niece enjoyed taking a nap inside of the boxes as well.

Make sure to purchase non-toxic paint.... I believe one of my nephews may be part beaver!

I've made several of Ana's pieces, but this is my first brag post.

I actually made this for one of my husband's co-workers, but now I want to make one for myself.

I don't know the actual amount of hours it took, but like any project, the sanding was the most tedious part!

This one was built with 4 2x6, and 2 2x4 boards on top, as the friend wanted it a little wider than the original plan. I modified the other dimensions accordingly.

The wheels used in the Shanty2Chic build post were too large for my 4x4 posts. The wheel plates were too wide. They measured about 3.75" and my 4x4's were only 3.5". Also, speaking of the 4x4's, I used untreated Douglas Fir, purchased from my local Lowes. I typically shop at Home Depot, but they did not carry any untreated 4x4's.

The wheels I used were the same style by Everbilt, but the next size down, the 2" wheels. However, their overall height was 3", and so the height of the table ended up being perfect anyhow!

I finished the table in Minwax English Chestnut and used the Minwax rub on satin polyurethane.

I put the time as a week long, primarily because of sanding and finishing. But, I think that if you devoted your time to it, you could do it in a weekend.

OH! Also, Ana doesn't mention it in the plans, but the Shanty Chics do... put the plywood shelf in BEFORE adding the second side. I had to remove pieces which were already glued, and it made that step a bit annoying!

Otherwise, all was well. Enjoy!

I built this coat rack a couple of years ago for our house when our little girl ripped the one we had out of the wall trying to get her coat off the hook lol. I was actually able to reuse the hooks from the cheap little coat rack that we had bought from the home store. It attached into the wall using drywall anchors so it wasn’t all that secure to begin with. I set out to make one that would look a lot nicer and have some room for storage. The design I came up with works great for  storing all our coats and hats, but also the cubby storage at the top is great for storing keys and gloves and whatever else you may need to store.

My bench build is a replacement for our old banister. We will be adding pipe rails for a backrest to bring it up to code.