Community Brag Posts

These picture frames are inspired by furniture and frames made from
reclaimed boat wood which came from fishing villages in many parts of
the world. The frames here are made from readily available materials – the humble fence wood boards, some stores call it lathe. An 8' long piece only cost $1-$2. The complete detailed tutorial is here- http://www.apieceofrainbow.com/diy-make-beachy-style-picture-frames-from-fence-wood/

I built this for fun and my sister ended up wanting it.  Therefore I never stained it as she has her own style.  Hopefully I can update it when she stains it.

I finally decided I was going to make the fort bed for my daughter and was about to print off the materials list to take to the lumber yard and the junior height camp loft was front and center on the webpage. Though significantly more bed, it looked perfect my little girl. We really wanted her bed high enough to avoid the only heating vent in the room and didn't want to lose the floor space for play, this seemed to be an ideal fit. When I finally put the bed together I realized that keeping the staircase as in the original plans resulted in a bowling alley sort of space left over. It was awkward and really shrunk the room as the 'alley' wasn't usable for much of anything. I played around a little bit and my husband and I decided that we would put it on the side. It fit perfectly to the wall and was much more space efficient for the room. I am a little nervous about the new openness of the deck portion, but both kids have found it a fun place to read and pretend fish. It was my first project of this size and I did everything until the final assembly by myself and I am so glad to have done it. It took more time than I imagined, but again I am a true novice.

I really wanted it stained so that it would camouflage the wear a little better, but I had a great deal of trouble finding a low VOC stain in my town. I used the lowest I could find and a low VOC water based poly. It matches her dressers and trim nearly perfectly. Her older brother likes the bed so much that nearly everyday he tries to convince her that she wants to switch beds with him.

So I finally broke down and decided to make the table that my wife had been asking for sometime. This after our last table was damaged by mold in our last move. I have completed a few woodworking projects before this so from a skill level on this project it was not too hard. The problem was that I wanted the table to be perfect but my wife wanted the dings and dents that came along with a farm table, so we compromised somewhat.

I did run into one significant issue that will be a life long lesson. The Douglas Fir wood that I bought had a very high moisture content and during the course of the project most of the wood began to shrink up to a half an inch in some parts as the wood dried out. I was talking to a construction friend in the area when I was finishing up the table and he confirmed that he had the same issue with this wood locally. Would have been nice to know this from the beginning.

Anyways, we followed the Triple Pedestal Table and Bench with the following adjustments. We used all 2x6 boards for the table top in order to provide additional thickness for durability, we also removed the center divider and just opted to use the full length of the 8 foot boards. We then framed the table with 2x6 and then added another lip of 2x6 below the table top. The purpose of this was to create a large enough area to notch the boards for a resting areas of the leg tops. We also rounded all of the 2x6 edges on the top with a router as we didn't want to have any sharp corners for the kids to run into.

On the legs, we opted to use 4x6 posts for the leg bases and tops, as well as the leg post. We (meaning me) wanted to have a nice clean look rather than the layers of 2x6 and 2x4's in the original design. I used the router to create the hole in the post for the runner beam, and used a 2x8 beam rather than the 2x6 beam. Finally I did not have the patience to cut out all of the arches for both the table and the bench and my jig-saw was not working properly, so we just decided to improvise with the design as shown in the pictures.

Inspired by Ana's Flip down wall art desk. It has different dimentions since wall space was limited. I used a magnet as a lock, added upholstered back, dowel for storage and extended the bottom part to add some strength. It is very handy!

My daughter wanted a dressing table and we had just dismantled a small wooden shed so I made her one by recycling the wood. I’ve only been woodworking for about 2 years and I’m really proud of it. Hope you all like it.
Steve Ross

used the plan on this site then modified it.

We used Ana's plans for her Tiny House shelves and the only real difference was that we decided to use slightly thicker wood. We stained the wood espresso and painted the brackets Albaster by Sherwin Williams. 

The longest part of this process was the staining because the sealer took quite a bit of time to dry before being handled, but this was overall a very simple project with not a lot of effort. It just requires patience! 

We couldn't be happier and it was MUCH cheaper than the custom shelves we had quoted! 

Thanks Ana! 

Made from Pine and great for Wine! A couple lengths of pine, some bead board, and coastal accent paint and ...Boooom! Show it off to all your friends and family.

My first ever furniture making attempt . My 5 year old daughter Delilah really wanted a princess canopy bed and we found the perfect one on this site , thank

What could be more luxurious than an upholstered leather headboard? The inspiration for the design of this headboard came from the super cool textured wallpaper I recently installed in our master bedroom. See the full tutorial on my blog, The Handyman's Daughter!

This was my second project using plans on this site and I loved it - I made this for a friend's daughter who was moving into her own apartment. She and her girlfriends loved it too! It was very easy and quick to build. Wheels took a bit of time and effort!

This was a real hit and I'd love to make more, if I had room at my house I'd make one for myself!

This is my first furniture building project and I was initially nervous that I have taken up more than I can handle. But things turned out just fine. My wife said she would pick this table if it were in a store and that made this project a success. My wife and I both like the distressed look and nothing in the stores impressed us enough. Three weekends worth of effort and we have a gleaming new table exactly as we wished. So, if you're a beginner like me, do not fret. This is a good starter project if you have the right tools.

The basic specs were from this site but I had to change it to suit my size. Also, for the top I used 2X6's throughout except the center piece which is 2X12. I liked this look a little better. I do not know how much work Kreg Jig will save as I have no experience doing it the other way. Kreg jig is not very common and I did not find it in Home Depot. Lowes carried it. With this design note that you cannot put any chairs on the smaller side of the table as the bottom stretchers will obstruct you.

I had to use a hand planer on many occasions to level things out, especially between the table top planks and the breadboards. With construction grade lumber there will always be warps and twists, so this is something you need to plan for.

Now to the build part,
Top is all 2X6 with center piece 2X12. Rest as per Ana's plans. Construction grade lumber - Douglas Fir.
I did not sand too much - used 120 Grit throughout - did not sand with anything finer than that and it turned out ok. I did this to retain the feel of the grains. It was fun distressing it. We used hammer, chains and nails, but the best effect was from chiseling on the sides. Practice on spare wood first.

For Finish I used Dark Walnut from Rustoleum. One single coat. Then I wiped on Minwax Red Chestnut on top and quickly wiped it off. That gave it a pop. I used 5 coats of Rustoleum Poly on top. Rustoleum makes a huge difference to your project time as it dries much quicker than minwax. Also one single coat of stain did the job as advertised. Note that Rustoleum Poly is milky in color, but dries clear.

Good luck to your project and hope this helped.