Community Brag Posts

This is the first furniture building project that my husband and I have completed. It took us about 5 weekends to complete it- including finishing.

We started with the benches as recommended in some of the comments and ended up buying a pocket hole jig and redoing the tops of the benches before completing the table.

The stain is Minwax Red Chestnut and there are three coats of Minwax Fast Drying Polyurethane on it. We're so happy with it and can't wait to start the next project!

Built for my sister. Because she liked mine so much :) I also built her an apothecary console to use as a side board in the dining room

very easy. I ordered my pins and ball off amazon

I built this hutch from Ana's book. I made a few modifications to the plans. The stained top and stained back planks are from reclaimed wood. If you build this hutch be sure to choose white knobs. I my opinion, its what makes those hutch pop. If anyone has any questions I would be happy to answer them. - Brad

This kitchen island should be your next project. My wife wanted me to build an island for so long, but I never thought I had the skill to get it done. I can truly say this was only my second woodworking project and it was pretty simple. I learned a lot along the way and made a modification to the drawer rails. The key to my success was the Kreg jig. In the end it was a blast to build and I couldn't have done it without Ana's plans.

The rolling kitchen island is the central point of the kitchen now, even though we have 75'sf counter space to use. It seems to be used by everyone in the family whether it's getting something out of the fridge or using it for serving. Well worth the effort..

MODIFICATIONS: I made two small modifications to the project.
One was the casters. Instead of the plate casters I installed threaded stem casters with a T-nut in the bottom of the legs. The casters are adjustable so it's easy to keep level. The second mod was the drawers. I initially built the drawer with wood rails, but was not happy with the drawer falling to floor, if you pulled it out to far. Living in a humid climate, I could see the original rails swelling and then the drawer would be hard to operate. My solution was to add metal rolling sliders. I had to remove the 2 x 2's on inner cabinet and the 1 x 2s on the drawer itself. I added 1 x 2s on the inner cabinet, mounted 12" metal sliders ($5)) on the 1 x 2s and screwed the other half of slider on bottom of drawer. It may require a small shim behind sliders to make it fit perfect though. I provided photos of this mod. My drawer works perfect now. There is no dragging, no falling out and no wear.

Hi Ana!  This project was pretty much inspired by ALL the great things you build on this site, as well as from watching a 'Fixer Upper' marathon (hence, the white color and shiplap).  Last Christmas, I promised my sister that I'd build her a hall tree since she's now up to 10 grandkids and needed more hooks for all those coats and hats.  Unfortunately, I also came down with a WICKED case of vertigo, so no power tools for yours truly. : (

Well...  The vertigo finally cleared up, so it was time to get out my trusty ol' Kreg Jig and fire up the tools.

This project started with 2 4x4s.  I cut 17 1/2" off each, then used the long pieces as the back and the sort pieces as the front legs.  Then I built a rectangle (shored up by some cross supports) out of 2x3s and used those to attach the back legs together with pocket holes.  I did the same thing with the 2 front legs, then attached the 2 sets of legs together with shorter pieces of 2x3s that framed up the side.

Next, I added a front to back support to the underside, and then attached the bottom of the seat on top of that.  I built the front, back, and side pieces of the bench section by cutting a couple of 8' x 8" x .5" planks to size, and attached 2 pieces to each side by gluing and nailing them to the frame.   Then, I rans some shiplap up the back (glued and nailed to the back frame) and topped it all off with a mantle.

For the seat, I used a 12" project board ($11 at Lowes for a 6 foot section) because I love all the knotty details and nail marks.  I framed it out with 1x1 and attached with pocket screws on the underside.  I finished that piece by staining it in Rustoleum Dark Walnut.

As for the rest, I just framed the shiplap section with leftover 1x1s, then sanded and stained the whole piece with the same Dark Walnut stain (so that something would show through after distressing).  Finally, I applied 2 coats of Rustoleum Linen White Chalk Paint (LOVE that stuff!), distressed it, and topped with one coat of Minwax 1 Coat Poly (ALSO love that stuff), and added some hardware and country do dads from Hobby Lobby (Rustic Hooks, 'Bless This Home' Sign, Decorative Doorknob, and "Mitten Clip" for wet mittens and gloves coming off little hands) .  What do you think?  ヅ