Community Brag Posts

This was a christmas gift for my wife.

My wife and I saw a large table and chairs at a local antique store priced at $1000...

It was nice and probably worth what they were asking, but after a failed attempt to negotiate the price down to a more reasonable number, I decided to build a table.   I was in the thinking stage when it hit.  I've been wanting to tear down this random privacy fence in the back yard ever since we moved in a few years ago and so......   a table was born from an old fence..

You cant tell in the pictures but this table seats 12 comfortably. ( 4 on each side and 2 on each end).  it is 7' by 4'  

Great project with super clear instructions!  Love the look of the sawhorse legs and had just completed a live edge table top, so merged the two for this coffee table.  

This my first time to make something (almost) completely myself. I did all the cutting and assembly of the rectanges with some supervision from the husband. He then helped me assemble the rectangles on to the 2x2's and to put the daybed together in the room. This took about a 2 days and cost about $75. The worst part was the painting in my opinion. I love the final product though and can't wait to try another project!
I did modify it slightly by making the dimensions 3 inches longer and 5 inches taller to accomodate a trundle bed underneath.

I LOVED this plan for a cart.  I was looking for a cart to hold my heavy mixer and be able to roll in and out of my pantry. In addition to Ana's plans,  I enlisted my 3 sons to hammer the wood to make it look rustic.  Instead of aluminum angles, I used steel angles and I used a 36 inch height to accommodate more shelves. This is one SOLID cart.  I absolutely love it!  Thank you for the inspiration!

DIY Craft Desk.

I built this desk for my wife to give her more space to create her crafts. I meshed a couple designs that I had researched to give her a unique design. This project took me 1 week to complete by only working on it in the evenings but it could be done faster if you have more time available than I did!  

Materials Needed:
2 - 6 foot 1x4" pine or Poplar wood
1- 8 foot 1x4 pine or Poplar wood
4- 2x2" pine wood 29" long
2- 1x2" pine wood 24" long
1- 12"x48" pine board (pre cut craft wood in Lowe's)
1- 24"x 72" pine board (pre cut craft wood in Lowe's)
Box of 1 1/2" wood screws
Wood glue

Wood stain and/or paint 
8- 1" corner braces

1). Cut the 12"x48" craft board in half (2- 12"x24"boards.)This will be your shelves. Sand all of the wood prior to staining.
2.) Stain shelves and desk top. We used two coats of gray stain. Finish with one coat of Polyacrylic. Sand. Then one more coat of polyacrylic.
3.) Cut the 1"x2" trim to 2- 24" long strips.
4.) Attach the 2x2" posts to the 1x2" trim with wood glue and wood screws. You will end up with an upside down U shape. This trim piece will give added support for desk top. Do this twice and then Paint your posts.
5.) Mark where you want your shelves on the posts and screw in your corner braces to hold the shelves up. I placed the shelf inside the posts to give me 12" of width for baskets. Screw your braces onto your shelf and then attach to the posts. I recommend doing the bottom shelf first so it stabilizes the posts.
6.) Do the same thing with the top shelf. Mark where you want them and attach with corner braces.
7.) Moving on to the cross box base.... Build the 4 sides of the box first with the 1"x4" boards. This desk is 24" deep and 29" tall. Use wood glue and wood screws to assemble. I predrilled the holes then, placed glue on then screwed together.
8.) Make sure your top 1x4" is the full depth of the desk so the weight of the desk top is spread evenly on box.
9.) I used this guide for the interior cross pieces. http://sawdustgirl.com/x-leg-office-desk/#aa
10.) Paint your cross base.
11.) Attach desk top to bases with wood glue and wood screws and you are all set!

It was a fun project! - Jen

My husband and I made this bed, using the twin farmhouse bed plans, for our daughter's third birthday. It was fairly easy to do and we got the building part done in one day. It was a big success!!

Our kids love our new library!  We have lots of books but few places to store them (one grandma is a reading teacher and the other works in a library).

Our alcove is 11' wide and the long shelves are 10' long.  The short shelves are 2' long.  The antique church pew in the center is 5' wide.  I put the bottom shelves just below the outlets so we have an iPad charging station.

I built this project 8x10 and made the back wall exactly like the front wall and just added diy windows for air circulation. I live in the desert so I did not use clear panels I used white panels for sides and top and tinted panels for front and back so that my plants would not get scorched. I am running a hydroponic system and could not be happier with the results for a first time gardener! I built it completely by myself in about a month, I do have a full time job and kids that need to be taken to practice and lessons after school.

Rule number 1...buy good boards

Rule number 2... store flat

I had a lot of fun putting this table together with my husband. This personally was my second woodworking project but the first where I actually used the compound miter saw and it was nice to work along side the man I love.

We shortened the table to fit our space.

Applied wood conditioner, gel stain in mahogany, and 2 coat of poly. This, to me, was the hardest, longest part. We aren't too skilled with this :)

I am so happy with this table!

On a rainy morning in early January 2015, my wife and I were sipping our coffees and starting to get ready to take on the day. It was a Saturday morning, so we didn't have to go to work. We had moved into our house about a year ago so a few of our rooms were still a little bare and simply acted as play rooms for our daughter.

I walked out of my office, and looked over to the empty dining room which was immediately adjacent. Coming from a large Italian family, most of my childhood took place around a large dining room table at my grandmother's house outside of Philadelphia, PA. This empty room just didn't seem right. I decided to do something about it.

I remembered walking around Restoration Hardware seeing this amazing farmhouse table that was around $2000. Way out of our price range for a simple dinind room table. It also didn't come with any benches or chairs. It would have cost me around $2600 when all was said and it just gave me some severe heartburn.

I stumbled upon Ana's site here and decided to look around a little. Low and behold almost the exact same table was featured here. After getting over a short panic attack about building a piece of furniture that we would be using quite often I headed to Home Depot, got the materials, some new tools and got to work.

Not only do I think it turned out awesome, it was an amazing stress relief. Two weeks later and bought the Kreg Jig and built a matching bench. These pieces are so solid I could drive my car onto them. Thanks, Ana for the confidence to get this done the right way and save me about $2000.

Onto my next project, a jewelry armoire for my wife's valentine's present.

I tried to follow the plans as well as I could. I had the sheet of plywood and paint already. So I just had to buy the screws and coset rods. It was  around $40 or less! 

This was my first attempt at building furniture, and I could not be any happier with it. Definitely a learning experience for me and my husband, but totally worth it.
It has it's imperfections (some of the shelves are a little lopsided) but I built it!
We desperately needed a new bookcase, and I have the hardest time picking things out.
We are very happy with the results. I saw a similar concept shelving unit in a store for over $100, and it was smaller!

I modified this plan to use wood that I had and also a piece of kitchen counter top that was left over from my daughters new house.  

We used Anna's outdoor Sofa plans, which were very easy to read. For wood, we kept costs low by using pressure treated wood, and staining it with Minwax Colonial Walnut stain. We did use the lumber cutting service at Home Depot- only $15 for the cuts, and it made the project time very quick.  The cushions were from Lowes, and throw pillows were purchased the previous season at Homesense. We are so happy with how it turned out. Thanks, Anna!