Community Brag Posts

My husband built this toddler bed for our 18-month old son, who decided very recently to become a proficient crib climber! He built it over the course of a about a month, just working on it on the weekends. He made a few changes to Ana White's plans. He followed the measurements on this blog as our toddler mattress was wider than her plans allowed for: http://janaebeth.blogspot.com/2010/05/pictures-of-bed-and-pictures-of-w….

Other changes to Ana White's plans? He bought 2x2's for the legs, and chiseled out spaces as large as what Ana had you attach a second smaller piece of wood to create. This made the legs more sturdy and attractive.

He also doweled all the headboard and footer vertical boards together to keep them from warping.

He used small nails, and made sure to tap them in with a nail setter, and then puttied them so you can't see any nails in his work. He puttied all other visible cracks and spaces in the wood, and then sanded it all down.

He sanded the corners of the footer down a bit so that they would be a bit more forgiving if our son ran into one of them.

My husband did make the arch for the bed. He did this marking dots on the highest and lowest points of the arch on the piece of wood we were going to cut. I held a piece of thin rope attached to a pencil a foot away, while my husband pulled it taught and drew an arch that followed his dots. He then just cut along the line very carefully, and sanded well.

He put all the slats that Ana recommended on the bed, contrary to some advice given in the comments section, as he wanted it to be as sturdy as possible. This was a good choice as they moment we brought the finished bed into our son's room, he started to jump on his new bed.

We are very happy with the finished product. We could have bought a cheap Wal-mart plastic ugly thing for the amount we spent on our beautiful solid wood toddler bed. So glad we went the DIY route. Thank you, Ana White!

I used reclaimed pallets for the top and sides of the table. I made a mistake though when making the trundle and ended up having to buy some tongue and groove pine. It ended up working out very well though. Inside the trundle I nailed a small rail and created a drawer for remotes and small items. This is only my second piece of furniture and I'm very happy with how it turned out!

My favorite build so far! This table is so unique and adds such a great touch to a chic space. This project is pretty inexpensive to build, as the biggest cost is the caster wheels on the bottom. They typically go on sale at Northern Tool though!

www.withlovefromgablog.blogspot.com

It was time for my daughter to leave her toddler bed and get in to a real big girl bed... made with paint grade pine and finished in a white melamine finish. Likely the most solid piece of furniture in our entire house.

This was my first build. I obviously started small!
Please note due to the dimensions of the wood I used, I had to make slight changes.

The 1x2 measured 3/4"x1.5" so I had to add a 6th board on the stepping surface. Also, there is slightly more than 1/4" gap between the boards due to the width differences. Due to the dimensions of the boards, the height is only 3" instead of the original 3.75". The final dimensions are 17.5x 11x 3.

This step flexes when it is stepped on by an adult so if it is used by heavy people, adding a center support would be a good idea. Otherwise, it's perfect for kids or occasional adult use. The flexing may be due to the use of pine instead of a hard wood.

I don't like the look of the wood-filler filled holes, so next time I will try using wood plugs. I really wanted to stain this but it looked awful with all of the little wood filled patches glaring at me through the stain even though i sanded them and they took the stain okay.

All in all, it was fun and I learned a lot. I watched videos about how to perform different techniques such as using a circular saw and countersinking screws. I read our circular saw manual and used the saw successfully. I also turned a one hour project into an 8 hour project!

Loved making this potting bench for myself.  My hubby guided me on using the power tools & I thoroughly enjoyed getting my hands on those!!  Such a sense of satisfaction & the beautiful pop of yellow brightens up that corner of my garden even when not in use.  Great plans Ana, Thank you!!

We painted the doll house with paint samples from Lowe's. For the stairs we cut 1 inch by 2 inch boards at a 45 degree angle. Then we glued and nailed each step on each side. The carpet was bath mats that we cut into shape. The chair rails are my favorite! We painted square dowel rods white and cut them to fit the rooms. We used scrap book paper for the wall paper. Thank you Ana for these amazing plans!!!

My husband recently constructed a coffee table and 4 end tables using the rustic x plans. We think they turned out great!

I did a mixture of 2 stain colors to get the weathered grey finish on the one set of end tables.

I did a stained top and creamy white bottom with glaze for the base of the coffee table and additional set of end tables.

Loved building this one.

My Dad just recently retired and since he is very handy, I had him make this desk for me. He did an amazing job! He used very nice wood and took his time. This could have been a quick weekend project for anyone who isn't retired and has time on their hands :) He did need a little more wood than was called for so you may have to make a second trip to the hardware store, which wasn't a problem. Another note he would give you is to NOT pre-cut the trim pieces before you build the desk. Cut the trim pieces after it is made so you won't be off. (It was only off by 1/8 of a inch, but for a perfectionist that was 1/8 inch too much!)

After it was made we did two coats of paint on the desk followed by several coats of poly on the top. The final project looks amazing and all of my friends now want my Dad to make one for them :)

Double wide trash can unit, Fall of 2015. 

So i made these chairs to go with the table i built. I actually built 7 of them at a time, three for me and four for a friend. I had a little over a hundred pieces of wood to put together which became a chore, so i don't recommend doing so many at once. I got burnt out quite a few times, hence why it took me a month to finish (couple hrs here every other day or so).
Anyways, the plans we very easy, the wood on the other hand was difficult. Using furring strips is inexpensive but i had more then i wanted split, and they wern't all the same thickness. Making the front legs stick out more (no biggy) and some screws went too far through even though they were the right size according to the plans. Two 1x3's furring strips sandwiched together ( side aprons) might not take a 1 1/4 inch screw. I had to cut off a few tips from the inside of the chairs.
All in all i am so happy with the end results, even happier that in total it only costed me less then $20 in wood! Would have been a little more because i got the wood for the chairs for free, in exchange to build my friend a table and chairs set like mine.
Link to the Chair Plans.

http://ana-white.com/2010/11/plans/four-dollar-stackable-children’s-chairs

My wife was going to buy a resin bench from Lowes. I told her I would build a REAL bench out of wood myself. I found the One Board Bench plan and thought it was a classic looking bench that was not too busy and perfect for the spot under the pine tree she was wanting to fill.

I went with Cape Cod Grey Olympic Maximum Semi-Transparent Exterior Stain instead of the natural wood look using the Tung Oil originally in the plans.

This was my first venture into woodworking since middle school shop class. I've always wanted to get back into it and I thought this was a perfect project to get my feet wet and shake off the rust.

Thanks, Ana, for your amazing plans and the inspiration I needed to get back to a hobby I love after over 20yrs.

This coffee table was our first DIY project! We found the plan from Ana's website, and it was pretty easy to follow. We are so happy with the result and now we are itching to build everything for our house!

My wife and I got the idea of the two tone from one of the other brag posts and thought it looked great. The end table plans called for it to be 27 by 27.5, we thought this was a little to big for our home so I changed the plans to 22 x 22. Everything worked out great with the exception of some tool spacing issues. When screwing in the PHS my drill did not fit in the smaller space that was left after I shortened the length. Over all I am thankful for this website and all of the people who give back. We saved a lot of money doing these two projects and they turned out exactly how we wanted.

I love this bed in my son's room. They were wonderful plans that were easy to follow. The only change I made was to make the feet slightly taller so he could slide underbed storage containers underneath. My only mistake was not planning ahead for how I would attach the headboard to the frame. It ended up not being necessary because the weight of the bed pins it against the wall, but If I ever wanted to make this for someone else I would want to solve that piece first.