Community Brag Posts

Finally happened upon a walnut slab to rejuvenate the top of my coffee table. I loved the wrought iron base, so I wanted to keep it, but the tabletop height needed increased to protect beverages from labrador tail attacks.

I cropped the existing wood top to serve for the base piece, sanded it down and stained it to blend in with the walnut. Four 2.75" wide walnut strips were used to create cubby spaces under the top slab for remotes, controllers, and keyboards.

The top slab was pretty rough, so it required heavy sanding to take finish evenly. I started with 80, 120, 220, and finished with 400, using mineral spirits to raise and knock down the grain. Finished with four coats of Waterlox original.

Made some toy cubbies for a friend before their firstborn made her appearance, modeled after these:
https://www.amazon.com/Badger-Basket-Company-Storage-Cubby/dp/B00GXZRUA…

Personally, I really like the planked look of the back with different stains applied to each.  Gives it a bit more personalized look.  They are stackable so she can use them in whatever configuration suits their needs.  Fun, fairly quick project!

This was a rack I helped my dad make so he could give it as a wedding gift. This is an attempt to build from plans that Ana posted here:

http://ana-white.com/2011/11/wall-mounted-wine-rack-dont-forget-erase-y…

We took 2 long long cherry boards with bark still on the sides, and ran them through the planer. Then we ripped them down the center to be able to use bark ends on each side and book-matched the cherry colors, but most people wont have to worry about that since they wont be using "found" cherry.

The back board is made up of four 1x7s cuts at 28.5 inches long. You can use whatever width you want, we just wound up with 7inch pieces. Then we used a Kreg Jig to screw those together flush (see picture of back). Once those 4 pieces were together we sanded the edges down to make the backboard smooth and flush.

The 8 mini shelves were 1x3.5s cut at 10 inches long. The middle and bottom shelves were 1x5s cut at 24.75 inches long. Again, we were using limited wood and had to adjust our measurements to make it work.

We spaced the bottom shelf flush with the bottom of the backboard and then would space 4.5 inches between the top of that and the bottom of the next shelf. Make sure there is still room for your wine bottle to fit between the floating shelves. ALSO, MAKE SURE YOU KEEP THE FLOATING SHELVES ACROSS FROM EACH OTHER LEVEL WITH ONE ANOTHER. You don't want your shelves to look lazily placed.

The way we placed the shelves on backboard was...involved.
- Clamp the shelves in place on the front of the board and trace them with pencil.
- Remove the shelves.
- Marke holes to drill within center of the trace.
- Drill those holes from the front of the board to the back.
- Reclamp the shelves back on and use the holes in the board to mark the clamped on shelves from the back.
- Unclamp the shelves and fully drill the shelves by themselves while they were not attached. (BE CAREFUL TO DRILL STRAIGHT and never come through the top or bottom of the shelf)
- Sand off your pencil marks after your drilling.
- Re-clamp the shelves to the backboard.
- Use 3" screws straight from the back into the shelves.
- Use 8 screws per big shelf and 3 screws per little shelf.

Then it was just slow and steadily clamping, tracing, drilling, re-clamping, drilling, sanding, re-clamping, and screwing the shelves on... You have to follow that pattern for each shelf or you risk ruining your shelf and if you have limited wood (like we did) that is not an option.

We also put very small pieces of wood to keep the bottles from rolling off their shelves. These were just scraps we had lying around and tapped them in with small finishing nails.

Good luck!

Awesome plans for a table that turned out perfect for our new home.

My third table like this built so far. Fairly easy project takes about a day to complete depending on stain dry time. I painted the frame white and used an American walnut stain on the table top and the lower shelf. 

This is from the "Workbench to Get the Job Done" plan. Instead of using plywood for the shelves, I used 2x4s cut to length which made the piece extra sturdy. I also left a little overhang on each of the ends for clamping things (I wish I left at least 3" on each side, but I think I left about 1 1/2").

My first try and I had a blast. Being a St Louis Cardinal fan I decided to give the "simple rolling bar cart" a cardinal twist. It is great for using beside a BBQ grill. I actually gave this to my pastor for "Pastor Appreciation Day" and plan to build me another one.

This is my first big project I have done, it was for my wife’s birthday. I enjoyed the challenge though, 

This is my first project. I had to shorten the width of the shelf to fit the space I had for it. The board on the back is also a 1x4 instead of the 1x3 that was in the plans. This was a great first project for anyone.

This bed frame was born from a compromise of Will’s desire for something soft to lean on, my desire for something rustic, and both of our desires to have a bed that doesn’t slowly inch away from the wall. What happened was an amazing Restoration Hardware meets Pottery Barn DIY masterpiece.

This thing is sturdy! No wiggling or anything. And that headboard is ultra comfy and plush!

We used 2 – 2×4’s instead of 4×4’s for the posts because the 4×4’s are pressure treated.
We put in an upholstered headboard instead of planks and “sandwhiched” it on all sides rather than only top and bottom. It was at this point that we realized that we liked the way the simple, framed upholstered portion looked so much that we didn’t want the posts on the outside and the trim pieces on top. So we left those off.
Another change here is that the head board became a little wider than the Anna White plans… that would be because I did not measure along the edge of the upholstery… Also, it was taller than the Anna White plans because I wanted plenty of the upholstered section to lean on/show up above our pillows.
The foot board then needed to be a little wider as well, and there was no clean way of doing that. We figured it out, and I built it pretty easily. However, I did not take into consideration the fact that, although the headboard was wider…. The posts were not. This created problems during assembly.
One last change, was we made it about 6″ taller than the plans to give us room for under the bed storage.

I used 2x4’s to make these bar stools and used Valspar weathered gray stain. I found the plans online by searching “chunky barstool”. It cost me around $85 to make all 4 of them.

First Project...really got me hooked! It's only 4 feet tall so it really was a cheap one...

I wanted to make something to organize the coffee supplies in my office breakroom, so I made these cubbies using the same basic concept as the Vegetable Bins. I used 1 - 8' 1x4, scraps for the angled pieces and 1/4 plywood for the back and front of cubbies. I was able to construct primarily with glue and nail gun. I chose "intermediate" level because you may need to make tricky cuts using your miter saw that beginner may not be comfortable with.

Such an amazing and easy project with a big impact in a home or outside. A few 2x4's and 1 bys. I wanted to keep the original look of the wood but want to enhance the gain and add a little richness to it. I applied a natural stain and 3 coats of brush on poly. I started with spray on and that stuff sucks!!! More of it gets wasted in the air then on your material. Finished the bottoms with some felt rounders and voila!!!

Love this table