Community Brag Posts

I do a lot of family gatherings and my daughter gave me a huge white cooler to accommodate all our different beverages. It's great to have, but its basic appearance didn't add much to the "party" atmosphere!

 My son-in-law has a small mill and after a recent visit he had sent me home with a trunk load of beautiful cedar. At that time I had no idea what I'd do with it. But, after seeing so many rustic coolers I decided that would be a perfect project to build with my cedar.

I built this before the cute blue ice chest was posted by Birds and Soap, but that would be a great plan to follow! 

My cooler had handles that were molded into the body of the chest, so the shape was a bit awkward to work with-especially considering that I'm really short on math skills! But, with a bit of trial and lots of error I made it work. I worked on it over several days, but if I'd buckled down and worked continuously I might have finished it in one day.

I love how it turned out, and after the 1st family gathering I had orders for 4 more (smaller) cooler chests!

We built this set as a variation of the Platform Outdoor Sectional plan. I read that several individuals had a hard time finding the right size cushions, or inexpensive cushions, so I found some on clearance and built the seating customized to their size. The built-in cooler was a neat little addition we had an easy time with, and we used mainly scrap wood for the coffee table and corner piece. We decided to stain it a translucent grey, as I really loved the natural wood look, but needed to match the cushions a bit more. Still adding a few finishing touches, but already enjoying relaxing on it. It was a fun project, and I love how it came out. Bring on the sun!!

I’ve  made several of these bunk beds now and my oldest was wanting a oregon beavers/San Fransisco giants themed one after we donated his during our move.  It’s made out of 2x4’s, 2x6’s and 1x3 pine.  

My First Project

My second project from hungary!

After being forced to sell my first build by an admirer, I decided to do another and distress it rather than stain it.  Turned out really nicely.

I wanted to share my most recent build with you.

With only weeks before my son is due I finished his changing table/dresser.

I am still new to this whole woodworking adventure and this was my largest project yet. (Completed project was around $95)

This dresser had a ton of ‘firsts’ for me and along with that I probably made nearly every mistake you can.

My firsts on this thing were:

-pocket holes
-sliding dovetails (to attach the drawer fronts)
-hand-cut dovetails (rear corners of the drawers)
-drawers with glides
-hinged doors
-table top fasteners
-distressing a paintjob

It was built knowing that my wife wanted it painted , hence the mismatched wood used(see pre-paint pics below). The nursery is designed around a rustic theme (see wall shelf unit in the first pic).
I will also be adding a hanging wall clock made from weathered pallet wood in the coming weeks.

I think one of the most challenging things for this project might have been the use of Home Depot lumber.
We were on a major budget so I purchased the cheapest wood in the sizes I needed. This meant combing throught the stacks to find acceptable pieces.
I do not own a jointer or planer, so in order to flatten and correct thickness issues with the wood I resorted to good ‘ol hand planes.
Time consuming, yes. But also very satisfying.

We built this over the course of a couple of weekends. I think the key thing was making sure my 1x6's were the correct width before we began to cut all the other boards. There was a lot of trimming after the fact making the overall width 1/2" shorter than the plans. Some adjustments made to the original plans were...

1) Using decking brackets to support the plywood to the 1x8s on the trundle (super easy way to secure it)

2) Purchased side rail brackets exactly like the ones here from my local woodworking shop.

This makes the bed easy to disassemble because although I swear I'll never move again I'm not building the bed into the room.

3) Instead of casters on the bottom we used those plastic furniture sliders.  They were way cheaper and so slim. With the weight of the trundle wood and mattress they move flawlessly.

4) Since my daughter has a memory foam bed I was worried about sagging. We used small 1x? ripped in half along the inside of the side rails for a little lip and then 4 1x6's the width of the mattress to make supports and then laid plywood on top of that. 5) Cut down the headboard by 6.5" so that the mattress butted up against it.

Me personally I hate when there is a gap there for pillows to fall down in the middle of the night.

Built this for one of my children for Christmas!

(again, I don't know why the image is showing up in the wrong direction)... While redoing my son's room, he needed a new dresser. His room is very small and we new we needed to be able to put it inside the closet. We couldn't find dressers that would fit the correct dimensions, but didn't think we had the ability (yet) to make a quality dresser for him. My kids don't like using dressers correctly anyway, so we thought this might be a great solution for him. Right now he is using the bottom area as a place for his shoes and small boxes for his underwear and socks. (We had thought about making one of the spaces into a shelf, but ended up not doing it, so I hadn't bought enough baskets).

This has probably been done before but here it is for consideration by my fellow woodworkers. If you're anything like me I get pretty impatient waiting for wood glue to work its way out of the tube. So using some scrap wood, I drilled 1.5 inch holes in a small 1x4 board and elevated it about 3 inches. A small board under the glue tubes catches any unwanted drips. Makes a perfect caddy for my glue tubes and no more waiting for my glue. Its always ready to go!

My wife asked for a homemade votive candle holder for the holidays. Searching online, I found that the general design concept is a board with holes in a straight line. Since the desired design is for a holiday centerpiece on a table, I chose an octagon shape. We think it turned out very nice! My kids even gave it a "that's pretty cool" which is an upgrade over their comments on my previous projects :). 

This was my first building project! The bed is built almost entirely out of found wood. I modified the Hailey Platform Bed plans to suit the dimensions of the wood I had, and my very small work space.

I did most of the building in my living room and my apartment's miniature courtyard, which is much narrower than a bed. Because of this, the bed had to be able to be disassembled until after it was stained. The modified plans use brackets on the corners - even these were found! Most of the wood came from discarded pieces of other beds, found in the yearly big garbage collection. The centre support strut can also be disassembled, and is attached with a joist bracket.

I think the actual assembly and finishing of the bed could be done in a day, even for a beginner like me, but I spent many hours sanding the old finishes off of my found wood so I would have a uniform finish.