Clothesline Photo Frame

As a Christmas present for my sister, I built a clothesline photo frame with plans by Ana White.  I was motivated to make this for her, because I figured she has the same problem as me:  we moved out, but don't own many (if any) pictures of us growing up.  I thought this would be a neat way of displaying them. I ended to make two, one for myself. :)

It was a really simple project to build, and each frame probably cost roughly $10-15 to build.

It took a few hours to build.  I used a handsaw for all my cuts.  I'm sure if I had used a power saw I would have used a lot less energy.

Now I have a request to build a smaller one from another sister. :)

Vintage Step Stool

I present to you, the second woodworking project that I've finished:

...a vintage step stool built with plans from Ana White. :)

This little guy was an easy project to assembly.  The hardest part was being patient with the jigsaw.  I spray painted it with a layer of white paint and then with a layer of this blue paint.  Once it dried, I roughed it up a bit to give it a more vintage look.  When I finally placed it my kitchen (the area where this guy will be primarily used), I realized that this blue doesn't really match anything in my kitchen at all! :)

Ah well, I have enough scrap wood to make another one, next time in a color that matches. ;)

Benchwright Dining Room Table

Aaaah! It's been a loooooong time since I've updated this blog. I'll try to keep it fresh with projects that I've completed.

So up first! I built this Pottery Barn Inspired Benchwright Farmhouse table with plans from Ana White.

This is the first woodworking project my husband and I finished.  We certainly took our time building it as well. @_@

Here is a picture of the work in progress:

When I first applied stain and polyurethane, I rushed and I didn't sand between the layers.  My lighting was really poor while I worked on it as well.  When the natural light shined on the table it looked terrible! We ended up spending a day sanding off my errors:

(Personally, I liked the sanded down version of the table) We reapplied the stain with two coats of polyurethane, and this is how she turned out:

The table looks great in the dining room! When it starts to warm up again outside I'll have to fix some of the new errors in the finish, but for now I'm just pleased with the project as is. :)