Community Brag Posts

I built this a couple feet shorter than in the plans because it is for my neighbor's fish tank! It was fun to build and I'm in love with the finished product. She's going to paint or stain it herself. The pics were taken in my messy, projects-everywhere carport right before the neighbor hauled it off! Her son-in-law wants one now, and I will be building one for MYSELF right away as well! Thank you Ana!!!

I modified this chair with 2x4's as the base and 2x2 for decoration on arms, this is prior to sanding and finishing

The need for a proper workbench in my garage/shop is a must, but. So is space! I already have a fold down workbench I’ve made with ¾ inch pipe & a door, but. I just need something that can handle all my tools. So, I stumbled upon these plans from the Family Handyman & couldn’t find a reason why this wouldn’t work in my shop. It has room for storage, can easily accommodate my tools & most importantly fold up to store. Easy to build too! Make sure you read all the plans first as some of the materials could be pricey, but well worth it. Technically it’s taken 2 months to build this bench, as I operate on a firefighter/teacher’s budget & during the holiday season no doubt. I ordered all the shelf standards & brackets through Amazon, $210.00 for those alone, but they hold so much weight to support your tools I figure it’s worth it. The rest materials (wood, screws) were purchased at Home Depot for around $150.00. The plans called for ¾ inch ply & it was $45.00 per sheet. However they did have a smaller thickness for $22.00 per sheet & was only a 1/32 inch thinner. I plan on topping all my surfaces with some ¼ inch tempered hardboard later on so I knew it would work. That also left me adjusting my screw size to mount my brackets. Due to the reduction in thickness of the plywood all my #8-1 inch screws needed to be adjusted to ¾ inch so to not screw through the ply. I also hit the molding isle to nab some pieces to use as furring strips to use under the shelves before attaching the brackets. This way I can sand each strip to match before mounting to make sure it lined up flat with the center top. One more thing; where it says “drill 1/8 inch hole in brackets make sure you use 1/8 inch pop rivets. I barrowed a pop rivet gun & was handed some rivets as well. Popped two & they had to be trashed because the rivet size turned out to be 5/32. So I stepped up in drill bit size & it all worked out. As I said, I’ll be topping it with some ¼ inch hardboard. I also plan to run it’s own electrical with an outlet on each post. I hope you all enjoy & this can help!

I was looking for a way to give our house some better curb appeal and decided our stree numbers could use a facelift.  The majority of money spent on this project was for the numbers since I had enough spare cedar laying around.

Easy to build, easy to customize, perfect for totes

For my first woodworking project, I foolishly decided to build a rabbit hutch without plans for my daughters new Easter Bunny. So I literally scratched some ideas on my wood working bench and started going to work. I did some construction over a decade ago, but never attempted to build any furniture before, so I'm pretty happy with how this came out.

I spent a few days researching various rabbit cages and for our place we needed something that was ascetically pleasing and functional as it was going in our living room. I got some ideas from the web and decided the best thing for us would be to have an entry ramp, 2 sets of barn doors for each level (for easy cleaning) and an open roof. We went with linoleum floors since she's already litter trained. The floors could easily be modified to add 1/2" wire mesh if we decide to change things down the line. Also, we chose an espresso finish with silver hardware to accent the wire mesh

I pretty much crashed and burned on the staining as I've never done that before, but it ended up looking ok after all. I did a light sanding, but will probably invest in a planer and jointer to get my wood in better shape before assembling in the future. Also, I'll probably lightly dab some stain on ends of wood before final assembly as it made it difficulty trying to hide the white pine with the dark stain.

Other cages I saw ran around $200-$350.00 so i don't feel so bad about the cost. It's really the time that it took learning and making mistakes. I'm sure if I had plans I could of cut my time in 1/2.

Total Cost came out to around $150.00 but probably would of been cheaper if I had some plans to go by. I probably wasted a few 2x2s and accidentally mis-cut a scrap piece of 1/4"plywood which added another $16.00 to the bottom line.

Here's a breakdown of my total cost.

Hardware - $30.00
Includes 5 latches, 4 sets of hinges (8 total) and a 3' piano hinge

Stain - $8.00

Linoleum Tile @ ¢.69 sq ft - $16

Brushes, Stain Rags - $5.00

Screws - $6.00

Wire Mesh Roll $30.00
Needed 2 rolls at $15.00 each. I used 1" Wire Mesh measuring 2'x15'

Total Wood $50.00-$60
I used 2x3's for the legs - 2 @ 8' - $2.00 each ($4.00)
probably 15-20 2x2's - $1.52 each - can't remember how many I used to be honest ($30.00)
and a few 1x6's for the Doors - $2.00 each ($6.00)
Sheet of 1/4 plywood - $12.00

Just My Size Closet!

Built this from Ana's plans with a few modifications.

Started with a big empty box after ripping the old stuff out and finished with this look.

Adjustable shelves and all !

Nesting Grill Station

Yes, my husband and I share our bedroom with 6 dogs and an occasional cat (or 4). Our older dog (Petra) has slept on our bed for over 10 years, and she's getting too old to jump anymore. We didn't want her to feel like she was getting kicked off the bed, so I made Petra her very own bed at the end of ours so that she wouldn't feel left out. I was inspired by MurdaRae's dog bed (http://ana-white.com/2012/06/doggie-daybed), and thought it was genius to use a toddler/crib bed. So I went looking for plans on Ana-White, and came up with a mixture between a couple of twin bed plans. I love that the plans are easy enough to modify my sizes, and come up with exactly the custom solution that I need. This was my first big project using Bri-Wax. The last one was kind of a disaster when the wax changed the stain color to something not-so-great. With this project, I learned to wait at least 2 weeks before attempting to wax it. I was blown away with the results. It is a beautiful subtle satin finish that feels great to the touch. Plus, I can easily touch up all the dog fingernail scratches that will inevitably occur. When I re-assembled the bed in my bedroom, I actually nicked it in a few places. No problem -- slap on some more Bri-Wax! My Bri-Wax was 11 years old, and pure liquid. I tossed it in the fridge (per Bri-Wax's recommendation), and it was as good as new. The only real problem I had with this project was leaking sap from one of the 4x4s. I'm still fighting this today. In talking with Rustoleum/Zinsser reps, they said that no sap could penetrate their "Seal Coat" shellac product. After 5 coats, the sap is still penetrating, but only if I turn it on it's side or upside down. I'm still baffled. I made the mattress cover out of a dog blanket, and made the cushions from some remnant fabric (suitable for dogs and weekly washing), so this was a fairly inexpensive project. It was a success because Petra slept in her bed from the fist night and loved that she had all the room to herself, and no boston terrorists (I mean terriers) attempted to bother her.