Community Brag Posts

We modified the Ana-White modular dollhouse meant for small dolls to build this Barbie size house! (Please ignore the workshop walls in the background of our pics! Lol!) Our daughter loves to set up all sorts of houses/school/hospital/stores, and commercial modern barbie houses are all covered in specific printed paper that restricts what a room can be used for. This way she can make buildings however she likes! It isn't much bigger than her old barbie house, and the pieces/room boxes are easy for her to move/stack. Each room box is 9" (w) by 18"(L) by 13"(h), with wall panels 4.5" wide. We also love that these room boxes can become bookshelves once she outgrows barbies! Thank you!

This ended up being a very easy project to complete; Ana's instructions were very straightforward. I probably spent four hours altogether on the project, although that was spread over the course of several days. We had several 2x4s left over from other projects, and I was able to use a quart of exterior Behr Premium Plus Ultra (with primer included) that didn't get used for its intended project. So altogether, we spent about $20. You can't even buy a plastic kids' picnic table for that price! As for advice, I found that the best way to avoid wobbling was to firmly attach three of the legs while leaving the fourth leg somewhat lose. Upon flipping the table, you should be able to move that fourth leg into a place that prevents wobbles before firmly screwing it in as well. I painted all the boards before assembling the table, and I feel like that is the best approach, as the space in between boards is slim.

Great projects for any beginner. Make sure you're working on a level surface for the table. I purchased simple planter boxes from a local hardware store, and worked around those. For the bench, my only suggestion is to verify you are square at each step- other than that it's pretty straightforward.

Had to try to build the Patrick Rustic Sofa Table and though it was my first time trying something like this, it looked very do-able.  Modified to 60" instead of the original length.

Shop was a mess and needed some organization. Beginner workworker so I decided to make some shop cabinets. Took awhile and they are not perfect but they work. Now I have plenty of storage for my tools.

This project was started on spring break and I finished it at the beginning of summer. Total cost was about $900. I built it pretty much by myself and my wife painted the playhouse. Overall about 70 hours of labor went into it. Great plan and instructions. Thanks Ana! I love this site.

Modified table to desk. Built the original table plan for a friend and it was too big, so I had the frame in my shed for a year. Repurposed it to office desk. 

This is the daybed option. The plan and cut list worked great.

It was a fun project and it went well.
It took me longer to make than Ana, but I am still new at this!
The girls love it and my daughter is very pleased.

Thank you for allowing us to use your plan this is a great gift.

I am new to furniture making and my neighbor and Friend showed me this website. I wanted a piece a bit more modern looking with a rustic flair so I picked this bench for the ease. I did however change the dimension of the bench to accommodate a Fallow that I shot last year and had tanned. I look forward to building the next piece.

For starters, I apologize for the quality of the photo - the bed is so large and my sons' room so small that I had to splice together 4 different pictures to get a picture of the entire thing. Now, onto the project!

I found the details lacking in the instructions quite often. I definitely recommend having sketch-up installed on your computer so that you can turn the pieces around and see them from both sides - in many parts you're layering wood and attaching pieces on different sides. So being able to rotate the pieces in sketch-up was a huge must for us.

It took myself and my girlfriend about a week or so of working several hours a day to finish this up. Since most of the bed is made in sets of 2, the second set always went faster than the first, since we knew what we were doing.

I also found we needed different size materials than the instructions suggested. 1 1/2" screws were just long enough that they came out of the other side if they were countersunk at all, so we ended up switching to 1 1/4". The plans call for 32 3" bolts and 4 2 1/2", but we needed 32 2 1/2" and 4 2" - when we first put it together we had 1/2 of bolt hanging out of all of the holes - obviously not ideal for 3 little boys running around.

All told this project cost us somewhere between $250 and $300. I had to run out for new 2" screws at least twice, so make sure you buy a lot. We got lucky with the paint and found this super bright yellow/orange in the oops bin for $7, and decided to do a wash instead of painting so we could still see the wood grain. (And my 8 year old promptly took a marker and wrote each boys' initials on their beds - kids!).

All-in-all I'm incredibly happy with the bed - it fits the exact need we had, and unlike the only other plan I found online for a set of 3, it doesn't attach to the wall (which is important as we rent) and will be fairly easy to disassemble when we move.

My daughter bought a condo this past summer in St. Louis, MO. It's in an old factory that was rehabbed into condos. It's very industrial looking. Her condo has a lot of open space in the kitchen. She asked me to build her an island. I've previously used several of your plans to build various pieces of very functional pieces of furniture for my daughter, my son, and my wife and me. But this one is one I am especially proud of. I based it off your plan, "Michaela's Kitchen Island" modifying it to meet my daughter's unique needs. The majority of it is oak barnwood reclaimed from my wife's grandparents barns that were torn down to make way for an interstate highway. It is very attractive and user friendly. My daugher couldn't be more pleased. Thanks for all your great building ideas and plans. You've made this dad and daughter very happy.

I needed a new island for my craft room, so we used the Michaela's Kitchen Island plan and modified it to be 30 1/2" deep. First time with drawers...they were a booger!!