Community Brag Posts

This is my second woodworking project. I picked up this hobby with some spare time and with my tools that were collecting dust after I completed most of my home renovations. Cost: $80 wood ($35 just on plywood) $35 hardware (2 recessed handles and 2 drawer pulls) $20 finishing products $40 lego baseplates On the lego baseplate side, I stained but only poly'd just enough so that the border around the plates would be covered. Baseplates had to be cut in order to get the custom size I wanted. The "play area" on one side of the table is 20 inches x 13.75 inches. Each side of the table is made with three 10x10 inch plates. Two 10x10s are side by side. The other 10x10 was cut with a razor to make it into two 10 x 3.75 inch pieces. I cut the plates so that I always had a "smooth edge" on three sides. I affixed the baseplates with epoxy. Simply butting up the baseplates does not work as the gap between plates is too small. To get the proper size, hold the baseplates together with lego pieces. Wipe any excess epoxy with mineral spirits. (Note: I tried liquid nails first on a test piece. The glue heats up after application and slightly warped the lego baseplate. Not recommended). The "mom side" of the coffee table has two recessed handles. The handles on the "lego side" are made with lego bricks. I drilled a tiny hole in the lego bricks. I threaded 50 lb fishing line through the lego brick to the hidden recessed area of the "mom's side handle" and tied off the line in there. Project took me over a month of time (probably 20-25 hours of labor). It could have and should have taken less, but I'm a newbie and am very cautious with my work.

Chevron kids table

This was my first real woodworking project and I feel like I learned a lot that I could pass on to others taking on this project. First post here!

It was a lot more time consuming than I thought. It is hard to estimate how many hours I put into it, but I'd say at least 20-30 hours of actual work is required. As a first-timer there was probably a lot of wasted time, and trying to squeeze in time for this around work, family, and other priorities probably added time. Other than a couple of days where I put in a solid 4-6 hours of work, the other days were an hour here or there that I could squeeze in. I decided to sand, prime, and paint everything before assembly. I think this was best for me, but I can see why others have recommended painting the entire bed white and then cutting in the color. After assembly there was definitely some touch-up required.

It also cost me a lot more than what others had posted. I spent around $900 for the project, including everything that was required...wood, new saw blades, new jigsaw blades, sandpaper - lots of it, screws - about 600 total, kreg jig, primer, paint, hinges, hinge supports, extra wood for a few mistakes along the way. I'm in Southern California and bought everything at a major home improvement store, so I probably didn't get the best prices on everything, but it is convenient to our house.

I started with taking the plans for the playhouse loft bed and playhouse loft bed with storage stairs - thank you so much for these! I built everything in CAD and converted it to a full size bed. This was very helpful for me as an engineer to see how everything was going to fit together. Even then I made some mistakes along the way! One of the best things this gave me was a consolidated cut list that showed me how many common size/lengths there were...like the 66 1x2x11.5's needed for the rails and the 13 1x3x68.5's (I attached this pdf here http://ana-white.com/sites/default/files/bill%20of%20materials3.pdf). This way I could set up a block on my saw and just knock out the cuts all at once and have them all be the same length. Building it in CAD also saved me on a few things, such as using a 1x4x120 instead of the 1x3x120 called for in the plans, which was not available at the store. This affected the dimensions of the stair walls and a couple of other things.

Things I learned along the way:

- pocket holes are cool and very useful; the kreg jig was well worth the $100

- wood isn't straight or square (I know, obvious for you pros out there!): the bends and curves over an 8 foot length of pine can be quite dramatic

- my garage floor isn't flat: assembly of the first rail taught me this!

- the rails are by far the most time consuming part of this project, between drilling pocket holes, assembly, filling pocket holes, sanding, priming and painting all the nooks and crannies, I probably spent 90% of my time on the rails...but my 5 year old really enjoyed drilling many of the holes and filling them with the kreg hole plugs and glue

- 4ft x 8ft MDF is incredibly heavy so you will need help to transport and it actually measures 49" x 97", so I didn't realize that I needed to cut 1" off of the height for it to match the 48" I had planned for...that would have been much easier to have the store cut for me! No table saw in my tool set...

- even with the help of CAD, I got confused during assembly on some of the directions, such as which wall would be facing outside or inside. This really only affected how I was trying to hide assembly features and screws, but something to look out for when you assemble. I replaced a couple of trim pieces that weren't as perfect as I wanted

- I used a lot more pocket holes during assembly than I expected, which was another reason that I say the kreg jig was well worth it

Differences in my plan:

- the stair widths are adjusted down to 22 3/8 from 22 1/2...you don't want the stairs grinding against them walls when you open and close them. You should check your actual width of your stair area before assembly because things might be different for you and squareness also affects this.

- I have four total stairs to account for the full size bed width, so heights and depths of each have been adjusted

- the lowest stair needs to be slightly shorter to account for the arc when raising/lowering it. As dimensioned, it will interfere with the front legs, so I used 10 1/4 depth instead of 10 1/2.

- I felt like the bed needed more support underneath so I added two more 2x2's with pocket holes on both ends

- I added hinge supports to the storage stairs to prevent squished fingers

Still thinking about added a window or door or some kind of access to the tallest stair compartment from inside the playhouse area...it is really tall so anything going to the floor in there might be hard to get out. The outer stair wall still seems kind of loose so I'm not sure if I need to add more pocket holes where it attaches to the back leg/wall or what. Not sure if I can add CAD models here, but I can supply them if anyone is interested.

This project was a Christmas present to my wife.  I used the plans from the 20-second tidy up coffee table  and made some slight modifications.  

After seeing benches like these on a wedding blog, I really wanted to build my own. It was a super easy project, and really cheap! Here's what you need:

• 2 – 2x6x8′ boards. They cost about $3 each at Home Depot.
• Screws, sandpaper and stain.

Cut List:
3 – 2×6 @ 47″
4 – 2×6 @ 16″

That’s it! I decided how long I wanted my bench to be (which was 47" long by 16" tall). Then, I cut out my pieces. I decided to do 45 degree angle joints on the ends, as opposed to having a flat edge exposed on the sides. I had to use my table saw to get the 45′s on the legs and two flat boards. This was very effin’ scary. Using my Kreg jig, I drilled holes in both of the flat boards that sandwich the tall center one. I offset my holes so that the screws wouldn’t hit each other. You can see in the picture that I accidentally drilled holes in my center piece too. Builder fail. That side will just have to face the back ;)

Attach your 3 top boards together. Then screw in your legs. I decided not to countersink and fill, kind of because I like the industrial look, but mostly because I’m lazy. Then you just sand that sucker up and voila! You’ve got a gorgeous bench perfect for any home. I decided to get a little fancy with my finishing and do a two-tone stain. It took about an hour to do the two colors and not drip on everything, as opposed to the 15 minutes one color would take. I think the extra time was definitely worth it!

I built this chair for about $12. I used 6 four foot landscaping timbers. The legs are 12''
and i used 1/4'' cedar or you could use pallets. The ends are Dog Cut . The chair is sealed and finished with Helsmans Clear. E mail me if you have any questions

Built this for my wife and daughter for a space to paint and allow to dry with no concerns. Developed from simply looking at the picture with a lot of guess work to get what I wanted for the end project.

Hi, Made my 1st cooler caddy some 5 yrs ago. Bright blue with dark walnut stain on shelf & top trim. Made 2nd & 3rd coolers of the deep blue both w/bottle caps in the center. My forth cooler was gray paint w/an antique wax applied. The side shelf was made of pallet wood (white oak) with a wine rack under neath (was a wedding gift for my niece) All the coolers were made with 2x4’s, pine, exterior paint and marine grade spray poly on exposed wood. Had fun making them all. More to come.

I built this from wood scraps. I saw one at Walmart online but thought it was too small. I built this to suit my tall toddler.

I call this the fish fry table because I built it for my mom to fry her fish on outside rather than in the kitchen. :) I did the old barn wood finish on it (vinegar and steel wool) and used a sharpie to draw the Philippine Islands on it. Conveniently, there was even a knot in the wood to emulate a tropical storm. Then sealed it with a clear gloss poly.

Built from kids storage chairs and table by ana white

I built this table using a hybrid approach; I used Ana's plans as a loose guideline (leg angles) and drafted the rest using the dimensions supplied at Pottery Barn's website (for the fixed table, not the extendable version).

Primitive Doggie Daybed

We used 3/4" birch plywood and glued 1/2" thick x 3" wide wood pieces in a herringbone pattern to make the top.  We used 1 x 3 oak boards for the trim.  The wood is a variety including walnut, maple, cherry, sassafras, etc.   We ordered the metal hairpin legs.   

We started with a base stain of Danish Oil in Dark Walnut.  Once that dried, we went back over that with a very light coat of Minwax gray wash oil based stain.   We used 4 coats Laquer for the top coat.

Easy build and we love how it turned out!

I am kind of a visual organizational neat freak and I have been annoyed by all the little things taking up good shelf space in my pantry for a long time now. This just kept getting pushed down the list ya know, not a major project. Anyway, grabbed an extra board at the store the other day and knocked this one out. I LOVE it. I made it short because I want to build a trash bag holder for the bottom half of the door. We'll see how long it takes me. I did use a 1x4 instead of Ana's plan which uses a 1x6. I only needed small things to put in here.

I've been working on these bathroom vanities for a family building a home. These are made of gorgeous Greenheart lumber. I have only worked with pine and spruce up to this point, but this wood is truly stunning. It has been quite the adjustment to work with, and I've broken my share of bits and screws :)

All of these together took me about a week to complete. Had I been working with a softer wood it would have taken no time hardly, but the hardwood....that's a whole other ballgame to me!

They will be adding 2'' thick concrete counter-tops on these when they get installed. I love the simplicity of their look!