Archive for the ‘How-To’ Category
Posted by Sonia Zjawinski to Decorating and Furniture and How-To and Pets and Reuse and Storage on
12 July 2010, with 4 comments so far.
Ever since I saw Kim Johnson’s Ikea hacked kitty shelf I’ve wanted to make one of my own. The clever mod cuts an Ikea diaper changing table in half to create two wall shelves affixed to the wall.
With an Ikea gift card given as a wedding gift, I set out to make my own. Along the way, with the help of my sculptor father (who is a crafty carpenter, plumber, and general genius on the side), I made some adjustments to Kim’s original schematics. After the jump, how to make my version of Kim’s clever hack.
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Tags: cat shelf, ikea, ikea hack, wall shelf
Posted in Decorating, Furniture, How-To, Pets, Reuse, Storage | 4 Comments »
Posted by Megan Jeyifo to Decorating and How-To on
28 June 2010, with 4 comments so far.
Have an old chair in need of some extra TLC? Can you crochet? Here is the project for you! Jo of About Mo and Me made this charming chair cover using a pattern from Attic24.
I know my way around a pair of crocheting needles as well as I do a spaceship but the hexagon how-to is full of close-ups, detail and simple language. Plus, it’s been lauded by the commenters for being easy to follow. Happy making!
[Images: About Mo and Me, Attic24]
Tags: attic24, chair cover, crochet, diy chair, hexagon pattern
Posted in Decorating, How-To | 4 Comments »
Posted by Megan Jeyifo to How-To and Reuse on
22 June 2010, with 13 comments so far.
Chris recently posted about how wonderful anyone-can-do-it DIY projects are. This recycled-bottle dish soap dispenser definitely fits the bill and coming across it made me downright giddy.
I’ve been griping to the Mister for months about having an eyesore on our kitchen sink. Been searching high and low in every thrift and craft store I enter for something to replace it, something with some character and whimsy (I almost bought a vintage still-sticky syrup pourer with a smiley face sticker on it, that is how desperate we are talking). Claire, the blogger behind Blah to Tada, has come up with something simple and cute to replace the ugliness many of us have perched atop our counters right now.
Glass + spout + soap = problem solved.
Check out Blah to Tada for the whole post and do go through the whole site. It had me yelling out “TADA!” to my computer after viewing each transformation.
Thanks, Claire!
[Images: Blah to Tada]
Tags: bottle soap dispenser, dish soap, dish soap dispenser DIY, Kitchen, recycled bottle, soap
Posted in How-To, Reuse | 13 Comments »
Posted by Chris Gardner to How-To and Lighting on
21 June 2010, with no comments so far.
There must something about the chandelier that allows its material to appear instantly elegant, no matter from what it’s been made. Just see the blogosphere’s infamous tampon chandelier and the human bones chandelier at an ossuary in the Czech Republic.
Thankfully, these DIY large-scale light fixtures are created from something much more accessible —the standard paperclip. At a dollar a box, paperclips can be strung together in all kinds of arrangements to make, from the looks of it, a pretty big impact. For a bit of assistance, check out these instructions from Etsy seller Re:Design Technologies. “For the handy DIY’ers out there, I bring you the Paper Clip Chandelier Frame “Master Key” Tutorial—everything you ever needed to know about the concepts, theories and methodology behind the Re:Design Technologies Paper Clip Chandelier Line.
This 12 page tutorial covers the basic concepts of working with the unusual materials used and illustrates the steps that I take in constructing all four RDT paper clip chandeliers seen on Etsy; Romanesque, Operetta, Helianthus and Moderna.”
$6.50 for one, or $15. for all four.
[Re:Design Technologies - Paper Clip Chandeliers; via Dollar Store Crafts]
Posted in How-To, Lighting | No Comments »
Posted by Chris Gardner to Decorating and How-To on
4 June 2010, with 1 comment so far.
Some of my favorite DIY projects are those that are really quite obvious and nearly anyone can do, they just needed some thoughtful individual to put two and two together and take photos along the way.
So, add this super quick and easy painted glassware tutorial to your “I should have thought of that” list, and then go grab some glasses and brushes, and whip some up!
Catherine from The Beat That My Heart Skipped says,
“I collected up a bunch of spare glassware, including bottles and glasses, and decided to give them a lick of paint on the inside. I was quite surprised by the results. If you use a similar palette for the different containers, and try to use glassware with different textures on the outside, the result is a set which is matching in tone but varied in texture. Which—I think—looks pretty effective. Also, using [matte] paint looks great because when you paint the inside, the glossiness of the glass really shows, which makes for another interesting contrast.”
We would have to agree!
[Get the whole tutorial at Catherine's blog: DIY Pastel Painted Glassware]
Tags: glassware, How-To, paint
Posted in Decorating, How-To | 1 Comment »
Posted by Garth to How-To and Kitchen and Reuse and Salvage and Storage and Uncategorized on
3 June 2010, with 14 comments so far.
The kitchen is one of the rooms in our house that we spend the most time in. Claire and I live in Humboldt County, California, which is blessed with incredible local food resources. College of the Redwoods, where I teach, has its own organic farm and CSA. Our local food co-op is well-stocked with local cheeses like Humboldt Fog, local organic meats and local seafood.
The kitchen was the first room that we started tearing into when we started renovating our house, and unfortunately, it was one of the last to be finished. We wanted the kitchen to be a place where we actually wanted to hang out and spend our time. The kitchen as we originally found it was fairly well laid out, but filled with horrible cheap 80’s cabinets, dingy floral wallpaper and cheap appliances.
We installed a dishwasher, put up drywall over the wallpaper and painted the room a bright yellow and installed some funky lighting fixtures. It was a great start, but the stove—an inexpensive Sears model with an old pegboard over it— continued to taunt us.
The horror. After removing the pegboard.
What could we do to make the stove area fun and functional? A new stove would be a good start. We started combing Craigslist for vintage stoves, and finally found a great (but really dirty and greasy) one that we could afford. Claire put a huge amount of elbow grease (and gallons of vinegar) into cleaning it. You can read about her valiant efforts HERE.
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Tags: crates, keeping up with the johnsons, Kitchen, remodeling, soda crates, spice rack, spices
Posted in How-To, Kitchen, Reuse, Salvage, Storage, Uncategorized | 14 Comments »
Posted by Megan Jeyifo to How-To and Lighting on
26 May 2010, with 3 comments so far.
Ah, Anthropologie. How I love to meander through your store, caress your goods, picture my home outfitted in your charming wares. If I could afford to, I would snatch up everything down to the fixtures and make my apartment into an Anthropolgie bunker. But sadly, I can’t. I’m forced to stick with thrift and hardware stores most of the time…which is okay until I open your catalog or peek at your website. The glutton in me has to avoid doing so because everything about you is so perfect for my house, my wardrobe and my jewelry box.
But wait! I can make an Anthropologie-inspired item with stuff from said thrift and hardware stores. Photographer Ashley Ann of Under The Sycamore shows how, with a beautifully shot step-by-step tutorial on making her own version of Anthro’s pretty pendant lights.
Supplies
spray paint
metal outlet cover
ready-to-go pendant light kit
metal basket
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Tags: anthro, anthropologie, ashley ann, diy, Lighting, pendant light, under the sycamore, wire basket
Posted in How-To, Lighting | 3 Comments »
Posted by Chris Gardner to Decorating and How-To on
14 May 2010, with 4 comments so far.
The jar lid screwed to the underside of a shelf is a popular tip for space-saving home organization, but the goal there is usually to see and access what’s in the jar itself. This through-the-table vase by Tomokazu Hayakawa offers a fresh spin—hide the jar under the table and use it to nourish floral blooms.
Simply screwing the jar lid to the bottom of the table and then drilling a hole through the table and lid (the post suggests IKEA’s Vika Furuskog) makes it simple to support a single flower, or several in series.
[Read more at IKEA Hacker: Table Vase]
Tags: flower, How-To, ikea, ikea hacks, illusion, table, vase
Posted in Decorating, How-To | 4 Comments »
Posted by claire to How-To and Kitchen on
30 April 2010, with 17 comments so far.
Since moving into our home in August we have been garage sale shopping like it is our job on the weekends and trolling our local Craigslist for furniture deals. Craigslist has been an amazing source. I love being able to take something that someone no longer needs/wants/uses and giving it a new life in our house. Our favorite new acquisition? A 1940s Wedgewood stove with two ovens, brolier drawers, and a griddle.
The stove was being removed from a kitchen with more modern appliances on the way, and we were happy to ditch our newer stove for this larger, older model. The stove that came with our house worked fine, though it clacked loudly as it struggled to ignite the gas range and let’s be serious, it doesn’t look half as cool.
In the former owner’s home our stove looked fairly clean, I could tell it would need a good scrubbing but I was not prepared for the incredible mess I would have to deal with when it was pulled from its longtime home. When we came to collect our Wedgewood stove it was covered on both sides with years of grease and grime. Every knob housed a greasy build-up, the chrome was dull and rusty, inside the oven was covered in, well, you get the picture. This thing had to be well cleaned before we could install it.
Above: Our stove after some scrubbing, but still far from clean!
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Tags: baby oil, chrome, cleaning, grease, natural cleaners, oven cleaner, tips, vinegar
Posted in How-To, Kitchen | 17 Comments »
Posted by Chris Gardner to How-To on
27 April 2010, with 2 comments so far.
Nerissa Goco and Peter Hoang are a creative couple in Vancouver, BC, who detail their “adventures in domestic living 2.0″ on their home blog, The New Domestic. They share everything from pictures of their daughter Luna to some very fine DIY projects, including this clever garden-clipping centerpiece project. Having found some vintage-looking pill bottles among the test tubes and petri-dishes at an art supply store, they went outside and immediately began finding stuff with which to stuff ‘em.
“They were a steal at 35¢ a piece. The only catch is that vessels this small, even when filled with water, are really light. They’ll topple over if the clippings they hold aren’t as light as a feather. Pictured from left to right are: (1) a sprig of mint, (2) buds from an unknown shrub, (3) bamboo leaves, (4) chive flower, (5) berries from an unknown shrub.”
Any help identifying the unknown foliage?
[The New Domestic: Glass Pill Bottle Mini-Centerpiece]
Tags: bouquet, centerpiece, dining, diy, flowers, plants
Posted in How-To | 2 Comments »
Posted by Megan Jeyifo to Decorating and How-To on
7 April 2010, with 1 comment so far.
I am all about ease these days. The sun is shining, flowers are blossoming, birds are chirping. It all calls for sitting on your front stoop or back porch with a cold beer and a good book. Here, I’ll show you three simple painting projects for making the most of your outdoor relaxation spot. They rate a one on the difficulty scale and don’t cost much. All the better to enjoy your springtime with.
1. Painting an outdoor rug. If you”re into flowers and swirlies and spending big bucks, World Market has tons of super cute outdoor rugs for your space. If not, click over to Curbly for a cost-conscious how-to. Author DIY Maven got hers done for less than twenty bucks.
2. Liven up terra cotta pots. If you’re looking to add color to your outdoor space, consider spray-painting standard terra cotta pots. They can be found in abundance at many thrift stores or at your local nursery and when compared to the cost of colorful glass planters, painting is well worth the minimal time and effort.
3. Spray paint your old patio furniture. This is such a no-brainer and yes, I am kind of tooting my own horn. I finally got around to spray painting a plain patio set and it made a big impact on my little back porch. Sand your wrought iron chairs or table, wipe clear of debris and get to spraying. If dealing with untreated metal, I would recommend using a primer. Shake your can well before use and paint in even, thin coats. Always make sure that your can is in motion and don’t dawdle on any one area for too long as excessive application can cause the paint to run. Hold the can about ten inches away from the surface at all times. Two coats is generally enough for wrought iron. For information on spray painting all manner of surfaces, check out this round-up by Real Simple.
What are you doing with your great outdoors this spring? Send projects this way. We’d love to hear!
[Images, top to bottom: Curbly, Sunset, M. Jeyifo]
Tags: diy outdoor rug, easy outdoor projects, spray paint terra cotta, spray pait outdoors
Posted in Decorating, How-To | 1 Comment »
Posted by Chris Gardner to Gardening and How-To on
1 April 2010, with no comments so far.
Depending on where you live, you may have already said goodbye to your final frost, it may be coming up in the next few weeks, or you might simply be scratching your head saying “what’s a final frost?” Well, regardless of when you can actually plant your veggies, mid-to-late march is seed starting time. Do it now so that whenever the final-frost date arrives, there’s something you can actually put in the ground.
A quick search engine-ing of “seeding starting” will turn up trillions of articles from the deep recesses of the internet suggesting purchasing special trays, toilet paper rolls, using egg cartons , or ACTUAL eggs, but this year, I’m going with Ashley English’s instructions for Design*Sponge. They’re well-documented, well-photographed, use recycled materials, and can be applied to small or large scale projects. She covers the basics from choosing seeds and soil types, to creating the best possible growing conditions (light, humidity, water), and provides a great how-to for creating biodegradable pots from black and white newspaper.
And if you laze out and just read the intro and look at the pictures, you’ll miss this great link for fashioning a seed starting unit out of an IKEA shelf, which looks like it works perfectly as is, or could be adapted to make perfect sense in your space.
[Small Measures with Ashley: Starting Seeds Indoors]
Tags: frost, garden, Gardening, newspaper, pots, seed starting, seeds
Posted in Gardening, How-To | No Comments »
Posted by claire to How-To and Kitchen and Organizing on
31 March 2010, with 15 comments so far.
I’ve always been attracted to those old, vintage kitchen tins. I owned some lovely ones for a while that were shiny and silver with sleek black labels reading COFFEE, SUGAR, TEA, and FLOUR. They looked great, but they weren’t large enough to contain the amount of tea and coffee that Garth and I keep in our house. We also use a variety of flours, sugars, and other dry goods that deserve convenient containers. I don’t expect to find manufactured containers with the perfect labels for my specific kitchen, but I did want to create a system to organize all the dry goods in our kitchen.
In our house, both Garth and I cook, though I tend to be the person who arranges things in the kitchen. My hope is that a well displayed, well labeled wall of ingredients would cut down on his cries of, “Hey! Where is the ________?” and my later question, “When you were cooking the other day, where on earth did you put the ______?”
The solution was fairly easy, attractive, and not very labor intensive. While fixing up our kitchen I left a cabinet door off one wall cabinet. This opened up shelves for a clear, organized display of our baking supplies, nuts, and dried fruits. Then I made my own equivalent of the old kitchen tins.
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Tags: bulk goods, dry goods, etch, etching, glass, jars, Kitchen, organization, Organizing
Posted in How-To, Kitchen, Organizing | 15 Comments »
Posted by Garth to How-To on
29 March 2010, with 2 comments so far.
Claire and I moved to California 2 1/2 years ago.
One of the things that made us veeeeerrrrrry nervous was the threat of earthquakes. I’m a ceramic artist, and we both collect pottery and sculpture, so the thought of going through an earthquake was pretty terrifying. From the moment we moved here, I started asking all of our friends how they earthquake-proofed their houses. The answer for most of our friends?
Nothing. Zip. Nada.
I was shocked! We’ve got several friends who lost a lot of stuff in earthquakes—one in the big Northridge earthquake, and another in Napa. The most anybody did was install an “L” bracket here and a bit of earthquake glue there. When we moved into our new house in August, we had the best of intentions when it came to earthquake proofing. We bought some earthquake glue and other precautions, but we never quite got around to doing anything with them.
We paid dearly for our procrastination. In January, Eureka got hit with an earthquake that measured 6.5 on the Richter scale a few days before the Haiti earthquake hit. The earthquakes in Haiti and Chile made us feel much more fortunate about our broken stuff, but we’re still kicking ourselves. You can read our full account of the earthquake damage HERE.
(Read on for a primer on simple home fixes you can use to mitigate the damage an earthquake does to your stuff and your home.)
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Posted in How-To | 2 Comments »
Posted by Megan Jeyifo to How-To and Parties on
26 March 2010, with 6 comments so far.
Gift maven Amber of the aptly named Giver’s Log has created a step-by-step tutorial for making a cake stand. And get this—the plates can be switched out with the flick of a drill to match any baked item perched upon them. I’m seeing red velvet cake and toile plates in my future.
The supplies are easy to gather and super cheap. Amber’s cake stands ran her less than fifteen bucks and that includes a cute drawer pull from love of my life (but not my wallet) Anthropologie.
Interchangable Tiered Cake Stand Tutorial
Tags: diy cakestand, giver's log
Posted in How-To, Parties | 6 Comments »
