Community Brag Posts

After finishing my boys' new John Deere room and tractor bunk bed (also posted), I saw this plan and thought it would be the perfect thing for some extra toy storage.

Yes, I know, barns are supposed to be red. Everything else in the room is John Deere green and I had paint leftover, which is not cheap. So green it is! I used my new paint sprayer for the first time on this project and am thrilled with it. I would recommend it to anyone who dislikes painting as much as I do. I bought the Wagner Flexio 590 which comes with a detail sprayer as well as the full size and I'm very happy with both.

Thanks to Ana for the well laid out, easy to follow plan and also for helping me create a big boy room that my boys love!

Great Plans! Thank you so much. My first go at a piece of "fine" furniture and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.

This was my first project and it come out beautifully. I did learn a valuable lesson - if you are going to build something in the basement, make sure it fits up the stairs. Not sure if you can tell from the picture but this ended up 6 inches shorter than the plans. Can wait to find my next project!

This was one of my favorite DIY projects. It's so much more affordable than buying patio furniture, and the building instructions make it sturdy as ever.

I built this with my fiance, who you'll see in the image of the in-progress bench. It was a snap for us, since we have a fair amount of experience building our own furniture. With the right tools, this project can take only two days, including wait time in between coats of paint and varnish.

We made our sofa to fit the cushions we found, and thus, the sofa is actually 84" wide, instead of 72" wide. By doing this, we also eliminated the need for a love seat, and instead are in the process of making two chairs to match this sofa. All in all, our patio will seat 6, which is what we were aiming for.

TOOLS
The most important part of making this an easy, fun project is having the right tools. I highly recommend you purchase or borrow:
- Compound miter saw
- Kreg jig
- Square head screws (stripping these is nearly impossible)

I was a bit over my head with this one but I am so far very happy with the project. It is not quite finished. The marble was installed last week and we are awating the plumber to come back to hook up the sinks. I will install the second slatted shelf once the plumbing is in. Will post finished pictures soon. The mirror is made from 6x6 posts from the lumber yard. We had a friend cut them to size using a band saw. We made the mirror frame based on a picture I found on Houzz.com. The mirror glass was something I picked up off of craigslist for next to nothing and removed from the original frame. It is HEAVY (~200lbs) and attached to the wall with metal brackets. We purchased the sinks/faucets on ebay. 

I used Ana's plan as a base.

I changed it from 8x8 to 8x12, made the 4x4x8's to 4x4x10' for a higher main platform and swing platform, and added a 12' long monkey bar set to the other side. Also, an 8' climbing wall and a plank walkway to accompany the two slides.

For the clubhouse, I used Hardiplank 4x8 sheets for the siding and an EZ-Framer kit for the structure itself.

The slides I purchased from Lowes, monkey bars from Amazon, and the swing frame braces from Amazon as well. The swing kits I got from ebay.

My son had a 'lightning Mcqueen' toddler bed- but we needed to get him into a little bigger bed.  We had a spare full bed, and Batman is his current favorite... Since there aren't Batman full race car beds- time to start planning and building from sketchup!  Took me about 2 weeks of evenings (after the kids go to bed) and about $110 in materials.  The model is available in the sketchup warehouse at:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=u6b750a53-37a4-4d52-9d31…

For the wheel covers I ordered online at Amazon for $25 for a set of 4.

For the Wheels both HD and Menards make a 18" wood table top for ~$7 that I just cut the middle out  with my router to fit the wheel covers.

The slats to hold the bed (made to fit both box spring and mattress) were just 1x4 pine boards from menards.

The body was made from 3/4 MDF, though you could of course use plywood. 

I used a projector to project the image from sketchup onto the board to get it transferred- else it would have been 50+ pages if printing..

For the logos I just used a minila folder as my stencil and cut out the logo.  Needed to touch up the 'tabs' to hold the logo in the circle after pulling off the stencil.

After over a year of other projects, I finally had the chance to completely redesign our master closet! I used EasyClosets.com to come up with the design again. :)  I still have a few more tweaks here and there, but I absolutely love it! I surprised my husband for his birthday by doing this project while he was on a business trip. :)

Other than mounting these boxes to the studs, this project was built exclusively with my Kreg Jig. I drilled all of the adjustable shelving holes with a nifty Rockler Jig-It shelving jig - wish it had been the Kreg shelving jig, but I bought mine before Kreg came out with theirs. The Rockler one works great - I just love Kreg's stuff so I'm sure theirs is awesome too.  ;)

I begged Kreg to let me buy their new circular saw rip cut product early for this project, but they said no.  :-(  Bummer because I saw Ana using hers and was so jealous!  I had to rip all of my plywood the old fashioned way on the floor with my circular saw and lots of clamps.  Yuck!

This time around, I used birch plywood.  I used white pre-drilled melamine for both of my daughters closets (brag post here), but I didn't like working with that stuff.  Too sharp, slippery and HEAVY.  I did our spare bedroom closet with pine 1x12 boards a few months back. I think I liked working with the pine best..

After a few months, I purchased a bunch of Closetmaid Fabric Bins/Drawers and they look so good!

My husband and I built this table as our first project. We followed all of the dimensions from Ana's "Small Sewing Table" project here: http://ana-white.com/2010/10/plans/sewing-table-small-spaces?page=1 The only thing we changed was the size of the table top and the legs. We were worried about putting my heavy sewing machine on top of the leaf called for in the plan, so we created gate legs to support the leaves. Since the legs were going to be folded up in between the base and each leaf, we extended the center portion of the table top to accommodate the change. After it was assembled and stained, I decided that I didn't like the solid color, so I stenciled on a pattern with white latex enamel paint (what I had on hand) and continued to paint the base. After lightly scuffing it up with the sander, I layered 3 coats of poly on top. It has held up well, even after many large quilt projects! I just LOVE my sewing table!

I have built some other stuff before, but not with paint and sanding and such. It was definitely a great learning project. There are imperfections, but it's a toy, so kids will be having fun and that is all that matters.

My husband and I built this for our son's bedroom using all five of Ana’s series of plans for the cubby wall system. We did pretty well, especially considering that it was our very first building project. We made the media component of the wall unit the same width as the two sides since we didn’t need it to fit a wide screen TV. My hubby was thrilled that the drawers went together beautifully. The doors turned out a little “off” -- luckily the room has a beach theme so this piece fits right in with the beach shack look!

I modified the Small Old English Style Farmhouse Dining Table plan to build a writing desk.   I used five 1x6 boards for the top for a width of 27.5 inches.   I made my desk 56 inches in length.  I put the drawer on the long side like a pencil drawer.   I did use the legs that Ana recommended in the plan.   I love how it turned out.  I used dark walnut danish oil and dark wax for the finish.