Community Brag Posts

I built the shed during the summer of 2018, following Ana's plans but with the addition of a green roof. After almost a year the vegetation -- a variety of native plants from the upper Midwest -- has started to fill in pretty well. My carpentry skills are rudimentary so the project took a long time but was worth the effort.

This was my first build, like ever. I am very proud! Props given to my hubby who is a carpenter by trade. I went back and forth on stains and paint colors at home depot. He didn't rush me and was awesome the entire time! He actually picked up the supplies, and is now a fan of the self tap screws! He thought he knew where everything in home depot was, but he had to ask to find those LOL. He wanted to use his new nail gun, but I wanted to follow the plans. The plans are awesome! We decided not to add an oven door just yet. Likely will soon. (Avoiding pinched fingers for now) I also have the knobs for the front, but it was hot and since I had only just stained them, they needed time to dry and second coat yet. (I kind of forgot about them once I finished them with my new dremel) We purchased the hose kit from the kitchen section at home depot. It came with everything, I searched market place and even posted asking if anyone had a used one for sale. No luck. This was $20 and came with everything, the guys at home depot showed me what adapters to get to ensure that it would hook up to our garden hose, and we grabbed those too and they worked perfectly! I messed up cutting one of the angles for the shelf the wrong way, but there was enough scraps for my husband to help me fix it. It was a fun build, and so rewarding to see our kids playing with it! I used my dremel 4300 and it wasn't powerful enough for the thicker wood, so my stove tops are thinner, but he actually enjoys setting them up and spraying them off the table with his hose! I painted the brass hooks green when we were painting the kitchen so they would match. The pots and pans came with the little tote and the apron chef hat and pot holder. It was a perfect finishing touch. *Edit to add photos kitchen hose kit from home depot, reading comments, others had a hard time finding adapters. I suggest taking what you have with you to home depot so they can show you what adapters you need. We needed three because we have a quick attachment on the end of our garden hose, (for our sprayer) now little mans mud kitchen can be connected and disconnected easily!

Made the sandbox 6x6. Recessed it so it sits flush with the timber’s around our fire pit area. I added extra armrests in the middle that double as supports when the lid is closed in case anyone wants to walk on it. Filled the sandbox full enough that the armrests sit on the sand when closed. It’s very sturdy now for walking on and the kids have tons of room to play. Thanks for a great plan to work from.

My first projec twith drawers! the metabox drawers were definetly easy to make and use and work beautifully.

I made the carcase using plywood and did 1x2 poplar for the face frame. Shaker doors are 1x3 poplar and sureply underlayment for the inserts.

cabinet doors were finished using BIN primer (2 coats with sanding) and then Benjamin Moore Advance cabinet paint in High gloss silver satin. Interiors were finished using leftover / mistints, and I still need to do some filling and sanding on the insides of the doors (I have to take them down to do a final coat but am waiting until I have finished the other set of doors)

the upper cabinet is a dish drying cupboard so I omitted the bottom plywood piece and instead used 1x3 on the front and back so the bottom would be open. then I made the shelves using 1x2 and dowel (paint the dowel first before cutting!!). This thing is a dream to do dishes in!

Used Kreg pocket screws, Kreg jig for the euro hinges (1 1/4 and 1/3" overlay), and also a kreg jig for the shelf pins. Metabox hinges for the drawers. Still trying to decide on handle hardware so I'm using painters tape at the moment.

Countertops are concrete using Rapidset mortar mix and the michael builds method (linked below).

Planters are just a small poplar shelf using leftover 1x3 with metal terra cotta pot hooks attached to the front. I lined the pots at the bottom with plastic yogourt tubs with holes in the bottom so the cutlery doesn't chip the pots. Those also drain onto the drain rack below. everything is painted the same colour although I used high gloss for the door fronts, so the shelvings behind the pots matches the wall perfectly and sort of dissappears into the walls to highlight the terracotta.

sink is a "new" vintage ceramic sink that I found on FB marketplace for 50$!!! had never been installed and didn't even have the holes bored out. unfortunately the drain holes were very deep and requied some macgyvering but luckily my husband had a great attitude about it and managed to make it work with a lot of googling for odd sized drain bins. Props to husband for doing all the plumbing on this bad boy, including moving over our RO system from the other side of the kitchen and installing a new hose bib under the sink for the other side of the house (why not?!).

I learned so much from this project! Including to store your poplar inside and on the flat surface or it will warp and your doors will not be flush. luckily it only affected one door but it is still super annoying.

thank you ana for everythign! loved the comment "Get on board with these euro hinges!" you are so right they are so forgiving!!

I made this for my daughter this year for Christmas. I’m pretty proud of how it turned out.

I built this scaled down version of Ana's Hall Tree to fit into a 3 foot wide space in my daughter's living room.

Combined two plans found on this wonderful site with our own revisions to provide a larger desk work area (20" deep). I also added a small shelf to allow for setting a book, water, whatever on it without getting out of the bed. As my first "indoor" project there were several lessons learned - one is to buy the higher grade lumber for the primary components including legs and beams. I did not do this and I had to spend more time than I should've finding good square, straight wood. Another lesson was that staining and polyurethane coating are a skill that requires a lot of practice and time. I and my daughter are thrilled with the final result but choosing to stain/poly it likely doubled the overall build time. Still no regrets, though. My 12 yo daughter just loves her new bed and thanks to this site for the spectacular ideas.

Very quick and easy! We did 6 in. boards and weathered the boards with stain, paint, and sanding. Looking for other places in the house to use this plan!

Unfortunately I didn't have the chance yet to build these amazing chairs, but in preparation I figured out what the measurements would be in mm's so I thought maybe other people would like to use it as well :-)