Community Brag Posts

The decorative 4-foot crown and hooks wall shelf makes a beautiful place to display photos and other decorations and also provides a practice application to hang backpacks, coats, hats and even Christmas stockings. It is fairly simply to build with basic tools such as a table saw and a miter saw.

The project costs about $57 to make with about half of the cost in the hooks. The overall dimensions of the project are 48 inches wide by 12 inches tall. It takes about 2-3 hours to build.

Download the plans at my woodworking blog at:
http://www.jrlwoodworking.com/

Pottery Barn inspired toddler bed, made with reclaimed lumber from our home reno. The wainscoting is real (not mdf), $2 from the HD cull lumber rack. It had a damaged piece, but the remaining part of the board sufficed for this small project. Screws are countersunk. 

The curve is elliptical (drawn with loop of string and two nails for foci, transferred to board and cut with jigsaw)

The construction is lighter than the original plan, using what was at hand and for a young toddler. 

Ever since we've moved into our new home, My Husband Matt has put his room (Or "Man Cave" as we know it) on the back burner so that other things could be done first. He has been so sweet about letting me use it for home decor, event decor, clothes, and misc. storage. 

Well, since the hectic first couple of months as new homeowners is starting to die down, I had made my mind up that I would help him get started on his Man Cave as an early Birthday present! He deserves it!!

In passing, he made a comment to me the other day that he would love to have some kind of rustic window treatments in his room. I pulled up Pinterest and nonchalantly pointed out a couple of ideas to see which one he liked the most. We went in the room together and he started to describe what he wanted them to look like. (Again, he was saying this in general. I doubt he thought I was crazy enough to attempt it. Welllll…)

The next day I worked on my usual “project prep” routine:

• Find the best design that will fit the space.
• Take measurements
• Draw up a plan of what it should look like and include measurement points
• Take measurements, AGAIN, just to be safe
• Look for Lowes or Home depot coupons
• Head to the store and get this bad boy rolling!

I first measured the window casing. (My window casing doesn’t have crown molding around it on the sides or at the top, which was a plus! This will make them easier to attach!)

My window measures 35″ wide and 58″ tall. So, here’s how I figured the math:

• If the window is 35″ wide, and we need two shutters, we will need to divide 35″ by 2, giving us 17.5.
• I would like to get a little room for clearance, so lets round both sides to 17 even, giving us a 1 inch clearance. (Room for the doors to open and close properly without worrying about rubbing.)
• You will want the shutters the same height as the window of course, so each of my shutters will need to measure 17″ wide and 58″ tall.  There are tons of different styles for these shutters so all you need to know is that each shutter needs to be half of the window width (minus 1/2 inch from each shutter for clearance.)And then you can just decide what design and boards you want to use.
• I used (4) 1×10’s for my shutters. (And if you are familiar with wood, you know that the real measurement for a 1×10 = 9.25, so I had 37 inches of wood to work with.) I trimmed 1 1/2 inches from each of the inner 1×10’s to get them where I wanted them to be. Leaving them as 7.75″.
• You will need 1×4’s for both sides on the window to attach your shutters to. They will need to measure the length of your window as well. (1×4’s are really 1×3.5)
• For the boards that lay across the shutters, I purchased (4)  3×24 thin boards.
• Cut these boards to the same length as each shutter. Which in my case, would be 17″. DON’T FORGET you will need to also cut (4) pieces to go on each of your 1×4’s that are on the sides. The latches will sit on these pieces and make them even with the pieces that are on the shutters.

So, after my cutting was all said and done, I had:

(2) 9.25×58 

(2) 7.75×58

(2) 3.5×58

(4)3×17

(4)3×3.5

This Christmas I was determined to have a fireplace for the stockings to hang from! I played with the design a little to add depth and height.... and tiled a little.

Loved the results for only my second project from here!! Not perfect, but mine!lol Thanks for sharing Ana!!

~Dina

I have built this table following the plan from the woodwhisperer website under the name "Not So Rustic Outdoor Table", Used white pine

Farmhouse bed and night stands. Second bed I've made with Ana's plans, absolutely love it and easy for all........Deb M.

This was a fun little project. Followed the plans roughly. I made a few changes in the fact that I only added 3 drawers instead of six and instead of using the casters I made legs. When using cheap pine from lowes its rather difficult to get a frame that is completely square. This makes it quite the hassle to get the drawers to fit properly. If I had to do it over again I would use better wood and be very careful that the frame is 100% square. But overall a nice project.

Inspired by Ballard  Designs Turin Bookcase http://www.ballarddesigns.com/turin-bookcase/237257

and the Marche writing desk http://www.ballarddesigns.com/marche-writing-desk/278164

with some tweaks to my liking :0)

It was so much fun building this bench & shelf for my entry. I now have a terrific place to stash things and hang my coat and purse! I am planning to make boxes to fit some of the spaces in the bench.

This is my third Ana White plan. Thanks to you, Ana, and other inspirations I have came to through you, I have seriously improved my skills. This project took me about 3 nights, working around the schedule of my almost 2 year old. Would probably be a one day project. Took me a little sanding to get those rockers right, but overall much easier than I expected. I believe my neighbors will be very excited when they arrive home from the hospital tonight to find this in their living room. Thanks so much for all you do to teach and inspire all of us!

Simple stool plans modified.

We have a laundry problem in our house. It piles up in un-organized piles and takes days to sort through and actually get in the washer. Honestly, we could do laundry every single day of the week and still fall behind. I guess that comes with the territory when you have 3 small boys in the house.

This organinzer is going to be great. We currently use it for whites, colors and "grown-up clothes". This keeps us from accidentally washing some of Mommy's more delicate items in the general colors wash which saves me money when we don't ruin her clothes.

The plans call for the 1 x 16's, but I had extra 2 x 4's laying around so I just built a frame using my kreg jig. The most expensive part was the beadboard for the sides and I used some S4S 1 x 4's for the top. Overall the project tooks me months, but that was more a product of my "shop" time coming after 8 pm and general apathy.

I definitely have the bug and have already starting a new project!

I made this quick and simple wall art using some scrap wood and some pieces I got from a pallet.  I nailed them onto a scrap of plywood and used a stencil and some spray paint to finish it up.  It came out great! 

Easy build and looks fantastic! 

I've done a dozen or more of these letters now. Each letter has to be cut differently, but they are all made from 2x4s and pocket holed together using my Kreg Jig. I have also made some letters with curves (such as R, B, J, etc). I cut the curve out of a 2x10, left over stair stringer and then join it with some 2x4 for the rest of the piece. To make the base plates, I cut small blocks of 1x3 and rounded the edges with a palm sander. I used glue and finish nails to attach them. I have more projects like this on my blog http://pneumaticaddict.blogspot.com .

We built this table from Ana's plans using only a circular saw.  Yea Ana's plans!