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.

This is a variation from a brag photo I saw on the Modified Twin Farmhouse Bed. I built two for my girls and also created plans of the variation. We love these beds! They are so beautiful!

Reclaimed this wood from a >100 year old home that was being renovated. This is just the couch portion, I also built the sectional part. I really like how it came out. 

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.

It was a long and brutal process, but so is child birth and I did that twice so... I was definitely a beginner at the start. I learned A LOT from this process and it paid off in the end! Couldn't be happier with the outcome!

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.

To build I used mostly all pallet wood.  This made things interesting because not one drawer was the same and had to custom fit each drawer.  

Turned out great! Instructions were very easy to follow. My first attempt at building a piece of "furniture". 

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.

Built from the Triple Pedestal Farmhouse Table plans. It took at lot longer than I wanted, but I was taking my time to avoid mistakes. All of the wood is "2 x ?" pine studs. the table is solid and very heavy.

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.

I made it a little deeper to accomodate my tuner (59" wide x 21" deep x 35" tall).

I liked the look of the long, top shelf that others makers had built, it's perfect for my 3 front speakers!

These sliding door rollers worked great for the door hardware:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DPH8M9Q

I used  1" x 0.125" flat bar (hot rolled steel) for the rails and door mounting stips (6" x 4).  It's fairly soft, so is easy to drill the holes for the screws.

Total cost was about $250, but $80 of that was for the thick cedar top. I used cedar, as I like the colour it goes when ebonized with vinegar/steel wool solution. The door are also cedar. I finished the top and doors with wipe-on polyurethane. The paint was grey eggshell latex.
 

We used the basics of the plan as presented but added scroll-cut names and small clipart designs on the backs. He also routed a curved edge along the sides and fronts of the seats for a little smoother look.

For the lettering, I printed out the names on the computer, then applied them to the wood with adhesive for cutting. The font I used is called Epistolar. I had to find one that didn't look funny with the A since there would not be a way to keep the little triangle part at the top. Epistolar was the only font I had on my computer that would work for that. We simply drilled a hole midway below the peak of the A to make it look right. The font itself does not have any cross piece on the A.

For the small Jeep and Rocking Horse, I just looked online for a silhouette of a car and a horse. The rocking horse again presented a slight challenge since if we cut the rocker as it was shown, the horses legs would look funky. We solved that by cutting the rocker part slightly smaller and leaving some space between it and the horses legs.

A few things we learned: Be sure your letters aren't too close together or the wood will split when you are sanding. We had this problem with some of the A's before we drilled the hole smaller. We used a drill press, for the holes, and the board underneath was not fresh so some of the back pieces splintered. A fresh board under the holes would have kept that from happening.

This was a really simple and easy project. I modified the design to fit the scrap wood that I had on hand to lower the cost. This bench is for my 2 year old and is the perfect height for a 2-5 year old. I used chalkboard paint on the work surface and peg board to add another interesting dimension to the piece.