Community Brag Posts

Starting from the Extra Wide Shoe Bench plans, I expanded the upper section considerably. The cabinetry is all cut from hardwood plywood and joined with pocket screws and glue. I don't have a table saw, so a circular saw and straightedge were extensively used.

Reclaimed wood projects.

We modified these plans for a customer down to two lockers. We also added a divider for the cubbies on the top per her request. We found the whole thing to be a bit top heavy and easy to get a wobble. Recommend securing it to the wall with a tether or L bracket. Also, it is CRITICAL to not skimp on the quality of wood and getting straight boards for this. We did not and it was seriously skewed for a while until we did a lot of adjusting...and it still has a bow! Also I recommend doing the build all in one day. I think since we broke it up into two days it allowed the wood to warp more than had it all been assembled and fastened/tightened at one time. Message us with any questions! The stain is Minwax Jacobean- one coat. We got the hooks from Home Depot. The customer wanted plenty of storage so per her request we used 8 hooks! Good luck with this build!

We wanted to build a new kitchen table for the home we moved into. I had just bought a new table saw and needed a project. We searched through a lot of plans and settled on the Benchmark Octagon Table that Ana White had. My 14 y/o son and I built this over a few nights in our garage and my wife did the finishing. We were thrilled how it turned out. It comfortably seats 8 adults (yes we have had 8 adults at it). My wife and I always sit in the bench that is pictured and we easily eat side by side on one end. It is a great project. I would recommend being very careful attaching the table top support to the base column and also reinforcing the joints of the diagonal upper and lower supports to keep the table top from twisting easily. All in all a fantastic project and people are shocked when I tell them my son and I built it, particularly from off the shelf pine.

This was our very first project EVER and it came out beautiful! We needed a dinner table and couldn't find anything that came close to the thousand dollar Pottery Barn Benchright table. While searching for used furniture I came across these plans to build my own. After days of begging and convincing, my husband agreed to help me build it. Now he thanks me all the time! It was so fun and easy.

We did have a couple hiccups with the measurements. Ana did say to read through the plans and comments first, but we failed to write down and remember what others suggested. That being said, these plans were very easy. We took our time building this table since it was our first time using a miter saw and our first time building anything. Our table was a little more expensive than other braggers because we didn't use reclaimed wood and since we are beginners, we botched a couple cuts and had to buy a few extra boards :). After sanding, we took some chains and a hammer to the tabletop and legs to make a more distressed and rustic look. We painted the bolts and pipe black with Rustoleum Flat Black. Our pipe was longer than our table, so we had it cut. If you buy your pipe from Lowe's, they will cut and thread it for you. We couldn't find any hardware that look anything similar to the Pottery Barn Benchright. We checked Home Depot and Lowe's, but decided to settle with some plumbing knobs that screwed in the pipe. Once we painted everything and put it all together, we actually loved the pipe knob look more than the Pottery Barn table hardware!

This table is so darn sturdy and will last forever. I can't thank Ana enough, and thank you to everyone that posts these brags, because you helped me convince my husband and myself that we could do this!

I challenged my husband who is new to any woodworking project to make me this table! That he did!!

This was my first ever Ana White project!!! I’ve never built anything and really needed a planter for my front door. I loved the size of these and how easy they were to put together. The plans are detailed and easy to follow. I plan to build identical ones next spring for my front yard 😍

I read about a SIP, or self watering planter in Family Handy Man April 2012. There planse we expensive and compicated. These were easy and fun to make. I like the I dea of using 50% to 90% less water, and only watering once a week.

I added a post down the middle to help with bowing.

I found 5 foot cedar fence posts for $1.28 at orange. Including glue and screws $10. I have the palsit lininn, the withe piping on hand. HTe drain pipe was $6. for a total of $16.

Orange had a 2 x 2 plastic Self watering planter $30, big savings

I say starter only if you are not ripping, but using 1 x2 's

My husband and I are expecting our second child this April. We knew we wanted to move our 2 year old out of her crib and into a “big” girl bed so that the new baby could use the crib. I saw the Play House Loft Bed on Pinterest and fell in love. I showed it to my husband and convinced him it would be a great winter project for us. He of course started his research and had nightmares of our daughter falling over the top bunk. So when I saw the Sweet Pea bed I knew it was perfect. I pitched the idea to my husband that the bottom bunk could be her bed and the top would be her play area. He was sold. We went to Lowes and bought our first round of lumber and immediately realized this project was going to be more expensive than expected but we were still up for the challenge. My husband worked on the project two full days, I worked on it a half day and then together we worked on it a few hours over nap time or after putting our daughter to bed.

We made some modification to the plans, we liked the look of a flat front rather than 2x4’s so we used a flat sheet of ply wood. We added carpet to our stairs to help prevent any major injuries if fallen down. We left the roof off for now but may add it on later. We also decided to leave the bottom open for any size storage we needed. We added a fabric ruffle to hide the space.

Looking back we wish we would have done this project in the spring/summer and not dead winter. We had to park our cars outside and use our garage to cut and paint all the wood which meant space was limited. This also prevented us from being able to use a spray gun to paint. Had we been able to spray the paint this project would have moved a lot quicker!

Once the project was complete we were so happy with the outcome. Our daughter absolutely LOVES her new bed and loves her play area upstairs!

My husband built this following the plans for the farmhouse table and I painted and stained it using 2 different stains and a whitewash. We are so pleased with how it turned out.

I decided I had to have a farm table, but could not pay the store bought prices. SO I spent weeks poring over plans trying to figure out which one to make.
We picked this plan because I felt like as a beginning it would be hard to make the legs. I REALLY wanted to get the husky legs found in the plan but they were a little pricey, so I just got the same height legs at lowes.
I am SO happy with my table. For anyone feeling daunted by pocket holes and a kreg jig: get a kreg jig mini. I couldn't afford the regular kreg jig but the mini was only 20 bucks or less.
Happy building!

This was my first project and took about two weeks to complete from start to finish. I used an oil based walnut stain and five coats of an oil based semi-gloss polyurethane to finish, sanding in between coats. Be sure to wear a mask and eye protection.....holy sawdust!

Built using pallet wood for the top.

First try at building a piece of furniture myself. I am inspired to do so much more projects like this now.

These are pretty easy to make, the hardest part is cutting off the extra length on the knobs, but make great presents!

Easy to build 2-3 hours. Weather proofed because did not want grey cedar in a few years. Liked the color of weather proofing but color continued to leak off. Polyed and sanding eventually stopped the leaking if colors. Scored pottery barn cushions 50% in the winter + 15% new email customer. Still $150... bought some pillows from pottery barn on sale for another $60. All in all looks awesome! VERY easy build. The rest ($$) is what hurts... Test any weatherproof in you use first before using.