Community Brag Posts

First Project...Used pine for the base and oak for the top to match home counter top.

We sanded, stained, painted, and distressed the wood before building. That was truly the most time consuming part. The plans were great and everything went together smoothly! We decided to take off the top 2 planks from the footboard, and used those as the side rail. We created the ladder from what we had on hand. 

I chose to adjust the great design to have a free standing tree with backing and a live bark base. Fun project.

Chip Brown

This was a pretty quick and easy project. My third one from this site, as well as being my third one ever. We rented a mitre saw to cut the wood (and cut wood for a few more projects we had on the go at the same time), and then it was just a matter of staining it and putting it together. The staining and waiting for it to dry actually took a couple of weeks, mostly because we don't have a lot of room to do that, so couldn't do it all at once, and it wouldn't stop raining. Once we actually had that done, drilling and assembling only took 2-3 hours at most. (Maybe even less, but hard to judge as I had two children helping the whole time.)

I've put a video of it in use on my blog as well. :)

My neighbor loaned me a shop vac and a palm sander to refinish a table, and I fell down a rabbit hole. This is the Brooke Mid-century Console Table from this site. I need to touch up paint the front, and it's not perfect, but this was my first woodworking project. I think the hardest part was wrestling with the drawer slides; I think I had to remount them three or four times. There was plenty of swearing involved with the Euro hinge as well.

I took a "Woodworking: Your Own Projects" class at the local community college, but this project was almost entirely self-taught (although I had plenty of adult supervision while learning to use the saws.)

I bought most of the materials from Building Materials Resources, a local reclaimed building supply store. And then took about a million trips to the local big box home supply stores for "just one more thing."

I had originally stained the project with Minwax Sedona Red and put some wipe-on oil-based poly on it, but the drawer fronts came out blotchy because I had used wood putty over the brad holes, so I painted those and the door brown ("Polished Mahogany" SW2838.) Then the edgebanding that I had applied on the front and stained was peeling off and looking terrible, and I didn't want to redo it.

I gave up and scuff-sanded the whole thing and painted the rest of it blue ("Still Water" SW6223.) I then applied several coats of semi-gloss spray water-based polyurethane, sanding lightly inbetween coats. I finished it off with a coat of Howards Feed N Wax and 0000 steel wool.

One tip that I have is that you can buy enormous (quart sized!) paint samples at Sherwin Williams for about $5 apiece. I used a paint sample for the brown portions, and a "real" quart of paint for the blue portion, and I cannot tell the difference in quality.

Skills learned:
Drilling pilot holes (believe it or not)
How to use the Kreg jig
How to use a miter saw
How to use a circular saw
How to use a table saw
Applying edgebanding
Applying wood filler
Staining
Building drawer boxes
Installing drawer pulls
Installing drawer slides
Installing euro-hinges (and how to use a Forstner bit)
How to use a brad nailer
How to attach table legs
Probably some other stuff that I forgot

Thanks for the plans!

DIY Outdoor Console Table

My sister wanted this to go with the Simple Outdoor Chairs I had built her for her birthday. I added a 2x4 between each leg to make it more stable and shortened it by one slat to fit the cushion. This was very easy to build and would make a great beginner project.

I started this project without a cutting table or any kind of shop set up. I used a burnt out tree as my makeshift cutting table. With only hand tools I used Ana Whites blueprints from her website to do this whole table, the directions were very easy to
follow and very helpful.

Took a canopy bed plan but made it to look like a house for my grandson.  

He loves it! 

Fireplace! Live in Florida and wife wanted a fireplace next to Christmas tree. Ana plans are the best.

I have been redoing furniture for quite some time, but had never actually thought of making my own furniture, until I ran across Ana's blog. Now I am so addicted! My husband is very handy with his tools and can follow plans fairly easily (unlike me) so I definitely had to enlist his help with this project. We are stationed overseas in Germany so our project costs us a bit more than it would have if we were stateside, but still quite a bit cheaper than purchasing the similar one at Pottery Barn.Since it was our first project it did take us a bit longer than normal, but still easy enough to do. I absolutely love how this turned out and now my husband and I are ready for our next project of a rustic console table that we made our own plans for.

We built this outdoor table and benches using Western Red Cedar for a patio area outside our house.   The cedar is pricier than doug fir or other woods, but is highly rot resistant and the best choice for an outdoor table.  We used Ana White's 4x4 Truss Beam Table and Benches plans and Kreg blue kote screws since they are weatherproof.   The breadboards were a little wobbly, so we reinforced them with black metal corner braces (http://www.truevalue.com/product/Hardware/Miscellaneous-Hardware/Corner…) and black coated exterior screws (http://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-12-x-1-1-4-in-Phillips-Flat-Head-Wo…).   These braces provide a cool architectural look and provide much needed support for the table ends, and especially the bench ends.    We stained the Western Red Cedar with Minwax Weathered Oak and finished it with two coats of Man O War Spar Urethane in Satin finish.   Hopefully it will stand up to the elements and last for years to come.   Thanks for the plans Ana!

Our daughter lives in a small attic apartment that doesn't have much counter space or cupboard space in the kitchen. So my husband and I designed and build her a kitchen island for more usable space and a place on the back she can put stools and she can use it as an eating bar as well. It took us almost 2 weeks because we were trying to build it in the garage below her apartment when she wasn't home. Her reaction was perfection! It turned out so great!!!

My girls wanted a bunk bed badly! I was shocked to see the prices shopping around at local furniture stores. So I made one :)

Bed is constructed with all pine wood and stained with Kona color stain. I added a few fun things like a window and a tent on top. These were really simple. Email me if you have any questions.

These nightstands span the entire wall of our master bedroom. My husband's side features a mini-fridge, whereas mine has a space for an ottoman that I have yet to buy (or make?). It is a combination of the "Modern Nightstand" and the "Parsons Desk".

I saw the plans for this nightstand and loved it! It was exactly the piece of furniture I was looking for to use as an end table. I decided to stain the top and paint the bottom. The outside is a greenish-teal color and the inside is a light, fun yellow. I also submitted this project to Canvas Corp Brands' Blog and they published it! See the blog post here: http://blog.canvascorpbrands.com/diy-end-table-painted-with-tattered-angels-paints/