Things I’ve done, want to do or are trying to do.
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Stair Gallery
We converted the attic stairs in to a gallery.
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Magnetic Storage for Models
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Sliding Picture Shelf
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Handy Card Holder
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Halloween Pressure Plate
It’s a pressure plate used on halloween to make lights go on and off. Like this
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Comic Break
I happened on this comic link today. In general, it’s a good idea to protect ideas long enough for the inventor/creator to get first dibs, but I’m not a fan of the current patent system that rewards lawyers for proving a tiny variation on a competitor’s product is something new and novel.
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Chain Link Fence
Once upon a time, all the houses on our street had no fences in their backyard. Kids and dogs roamed freely and football games were played. At least, that’s what our neighbours say who have lived there for many years. By the time we moved in it was just our two houses with a shared backyard. This never really bothered us much until we got a dog, when the need for some secure fencing was more urgent.
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Basement Workbench
It’s time to revamp the basement. Of course I didn’t take any photos of how it used to look, or the (very) old work desk in the corner. So for now look at the repainted walls, new baseboard, fresh floor paint and a brand spanking new work desk.
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Halloween Boards
This year we’re looking good for halloween with some brightly lit panels on the front of the house.
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Trailer Shed
We love our trailer but compared to others on the site it was lacking that little something that all the other lots had.
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Shed Roof Makeover
Our daughter is looking to sell her house and the shed in the back garden needed a bit of love. One side had definitely seen better days.
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Trailer Deck Gates
At our trailer we have a lovely large deck with two stairs that are wide open. It wasn’t a problem before we got the puppy, but now we really need a closed in deck to let her run araound
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Metal Garden Arch
Here’s an arch we got a few years ago. It went up quickly and was just held in with some garden posts and a few chunks of wood. Our dog decided the wood looked pretty tasty and ran off with it, and the arch fell down pretty soon after wards.
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Pelmets & Sewing Machines
Our trailer came with window blinds and some pelmets (the things above curtains) that were designed to fit in with the bland colour scheme. We (well, me) wanted to introduce some colour and one thing to do was to replace the pelmets. I could buy some, but the mother in law has a sewing machine and I’ve always fancied giving it a go. I got some basic lessons and this is what we ended up with.
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(Another) Garden Gate
Thought I was done with garden gates, but there was still one more to go. There is a compost heap at the bottom of the garden that we throw all our food scraps and leaves on too. It turns out this is irritable to our puppy, so we had to block it off with a makeshift barrier over the winter.
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Forging a Knife
For my birthday this year the family paid for me to go on a course to forge a knife. It was the Foundations of blade smithing course from blacksmith Douglas Morlock. I really enjoyed it.
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Christmas Tree Fence
It’s our puppy’s first Christmas and there is so much for her to see, do and chew. After finding tree ornaments around the house it was time to restrict some of the temptations.
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Side Passage Gate
We got a puppy and so it was time to close off the backyard. After some discussion we went with a design based upon farm gates.
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Workshop Reorganization 3
This ones a bit late but here’s an update on the workshop re-org.
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Small Backyard Gate
Our daughter has a back garden that can be accessed from the street. She was keeping it closed with a dog gate but when we wanted to borrow that (thanks 👍) we wanted to replace it with something a little more permanent.
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Halloween Snake Candy Chute
It’s halloween in 2020 so that means better safe than sorry. So why not make it fun? I like the idea of candy chutes but they look so boring. Here’s my take on how to jazz them up a bit.
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Workshop Reorganization 2
Next step of the reorg (see part 1) is to rip out the old mismatched shelves and put some thing more practical in its place. Rather than more shelves I wanted to try out French Cleats instead. Instead of explaining it here, take a look at the french cleat wikipedia article instead. Got it? Good.
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Replace Screen Door
The door to the sun room literally fell apart during last winter, and there’s really not much point in having a screened in room if there’s no screen in the door.
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Garden Shed Door Step
A few years ago we built one of those garden sheds from a box. It turned out great but I never got around to giving it a proper step.
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Water Always Flows Downhill
Last winter we had a lot of snow followed by a quick melt. This combination lead a to a lot of water flowing down the side of the house and forming a lake in the back patio. I needed to get a pump to clear it.
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The little Room that Could
There’s a little (4’x4’) bathroom on the ground floor that was looking a little … unloved.
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Picture a Frame
Sue has been working on a number of paintings lately and she wondered if I could make some frames.
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Holding on to the Rain
Water is always needed in a garden and its better to capture it then to use it from the tap. We got some water barrels last year and have been holding on to them until I got a chance to properly set them up.
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A Guiding Hand
This is one of the longer projects in the house. I added the handrail to the basement stairs in the first week of moving in. Some years later I finally got around to painting it and putting on the the stair treads.
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Screen Door
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Not quite the same
Here’s a picture of two F-Clamps brought at Canadian Tire aprox 5 years apart. Same brand (Mastercraft) and same size (4”x24”). But not the same quality.
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Workshop Reorganization 1
When we brought the house one of the previous owners had erected a large workshop in the back garden, about the size of a 3 car garage. Of course, the first thing we did when we moved in was to fill it full of old furniture, christmas decs and various tat.
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Wisteria Arch
There’s a new arch in the garden that’s destined to be covered in green vines.
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Trellis for Arch
Spring has sprung and plants need some new trellis to climb up. Here’s the main arch with the finished side trellis in place.
IMG_3428 -
The Protector of Vegetables
After one too many squirrel attacks on unsuspecting seedlings it was time to strike back. Behold, the Protector of Vegetables.
Vegetable Protectors -
Garden Shed Door Stop
In my opinion, a door should always know if it is open or closed. I’m not fond of the ones that can’t make up their mind. You know the ones, they’re left open but then slowly close when you’re not looking. Or worse, they close but don’t stay shut; leading to a repetitive cycle of open, slow squeak, bang; open, slow squeak, bang …
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Privacy Film for the Front Door
Privacy film is a covering you can get to turn clear windows into opaque windows. We had a small window by the front door that the dogs were always barking at people walking past. Here it is covered up with bamboo.
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Network Cable Faceplate
For when you don’t install cables correctly and just poke them through the walls.
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Tie Fighter
My daughter got me another Metal Earth model for Christmas 2016. Took me a while to get to it, but here it is now, the Rogue One Tie Striker.
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Mortise Lock
Our house was built around the 1920s and still has some of the original features, such as doors and their mortice locks.
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Crown Molding (the wrong way)
We finished repainting the bedroom and realized it would look a lot better with a spot of crown molding. This is not something I’d done before and I can’t say I was particularly good at it (see later pictures) but paint hides a multitude of things and it ended up looking alright.
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Bedroom Oasis
An oasis of calm -
Shed Interior
Garden Shed Interior -
Raised Beds
Raised Beds -
Garden Shed from a Box
Welcome to the new addition to the garden, a Shed from a Box. Mostly finished.
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Tile Cutting
Recently I had to cut some of the little tiles for a kitchen backsplash. After a few attempts I sandwiched the fiddly buggers between two pieces of plywood.
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Kitchen Renovation
Bit of a long one, this. Should have been posting regular updates but got a bit a busy. Let’s start with the before and after pics.
After
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Balance Scales
Home made balance scales for kids’ play.
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Jigsaw Conversion
Adding grip handles to a kids jigsaw
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Coat Hook
Made a coat hook for the mud room.
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Concrete Rain Guide
There is a corner of the garden where the driveway slopes down to meet a small patio that has a hole in the wall. This hole nicely directs all the rain and mud down on to the patio making a bit of mess.
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Espalier Fence & Arch
The brief
How to grow fruit trees in a small garden and make them look pretty using the espalier technique. (Obligaroty Pretty pictures.)
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Tiger Moth
Fancy something crafty to do for a few hours? There’s a few of these kits from Metal Earth, which in these parts you can find in most hobby stores.
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Sugru that Kettle
Automatic kettles are a wonderful thing. You turn them on, they turn themselves off when ready. What more could you ask for?
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Paint Stripping
Our house has some lovely old hinges on the doors but over the years they have acquired quite a few layers of paint. Luckily the internet is full of useful suggestions on how to remove it.
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Howls Moving Castle 1
More paper craft! A little bit more ambitious, this one is the castle from Howl’s Moving Castle. It’s a big project and since I only work on it now and again it’s taking a while.
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Bedroom Renovation 3
Final stretch! So far we have repaired the floor, added a dividing wall and new baseboard. At this point it was time to undercoat everything.
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Bedroom Renovation 2
Following on from patching up the floor, the next step was a dividing wall. Cue some 2x4s and a chop saw montage.
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Bedroom Renovation 1
One of the bedrooms in the house needed a bit of a spruce up. First on the list was a mismatched floorboard added by a contractor after doing some work.
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Fish Tank Stand
Fish Tank Stand -
Time Passed
And just like that, the seasons rolled, time passed and nothing was added to the blog.
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Laundry Tub
New house, new problems. Painting was high on the list, but there was something missing. Not paints, brushes, stirrers or anything else but where to clean them out. The kitchen sink? I think not. The bathroom sink? Too small. The laundry tub then … only there was no laundry tub.
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Kitchen Door Protectors
This one might not work out, we’ll have to see. The kitchen doors in the new house are painted, which means they get dirty finger prints and chipped very easily.
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Attic Conversion
This one is a bit of cheat, most of this was done by a contractor. I’m posting it because its a great conversion and also the first time I trimmed a window.
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Weightbench
My sons have been asking for a weight bench for a while but I wasn’t going to be getting a new one so they could use it once and then let it gather dust in the corner.
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Chicken Coop Update
Over the summer we have added 6 more chicks to our little band and the single nesting box was looking like it be inadequate once the chicks grew into hens.
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Broken Chair
The boys are big teenagers now and a little on the clumsy side, so it is not always a surprise when something ‘accidentally’ breaks. Like, for instance, the arm of a chair that was clearly designed for a single person.
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Clean Safety Glasses
Are you safety glasses looking a little dingy? Too much dust and dirt splattered onto them from using the strimmer a bit too much?
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Hugelkultur
Here’s something a little different: Hugelkulture; or raised garden beds. There’s a good site .
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Bee Hotel
This is another one of those projects that came out of Suzanne’s garden lectures she goes to. is a buzz phrase at the moment as with all the bee diseases around it behoves us to look after the wee beasties. After all, who else will pollenate the fruit trees?
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No More Wobbly Toilet
Our toilet wobble has been steadily increasing the last few months and it finally came time to do something about it. A quick investigation showed the bolt that attached the bowl to the floor was loose, and a slightly longer investigation showed the reason why was a broken floor flange.
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Window Box
The shed at the end of the garden lost a window box at the beginning of winter and has looked a bit forlorn with only one of them left. It’s time to right that wrong and make the shed smile again.
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Death Eater Papercraft Mask
Paper craft seems to be the just the thing for those evening winters when the family gathers around the tv to watch the latest singing related reality competition.
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Chicken Vest
Here’s a story with a happy ending and it involves chickens.
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Killa Kan
Time for paper models. I found some plans for three Killa Kans on 4chan and thought I’d give them a go. Here’s the data sheet
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Carve Pumpkins with Peanut Butter
Now I’m a big fan of carving pumpkins, we do it every year. Since it’s always a good idea to switch things up every now and again I was very intrigued when I saw this whimsical article about using squirrels to carve pumpkins.
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Hypertufa Update
After all the excitement last winter on making the hypertufa it’s time for an update on how they’re doing. Here a few of them after being planted and left out for the summer season.
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What Colour Should Garden Tools Be?
Here’s a question for you, what colour should garden tools be? Here’s a selection of hand tools from our garden:
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Some Like it Steady
Earlier this month I became a bemused and first time owner of a smart phone; an iPhone to be exact. It turned out to not be quite as bad as I feared and one of the useful things about it is the video capability.
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Shade Time
Summer time can get quite hot in these parts, although I should be careful what I say as this year has so far been very mild. Even so, a bit of direct sun can go a long way when it comes to shade loving plants.
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Piggy II
We last left Piggy encased in plaster. Obviously he couldn’t stay there forever.
Step 5 - Prepare Molds for Paper Mache
After the bottom mold had dried it slipped right off the pig without any problems. Well, not quite. Actually the pig had stuck quite fast in this one too. Never mind, I know how to deal with these kind of situations.
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Piggy I
Making a plaster of paris mold is something I’ve wanted to try for a while. The idea is you take an object, encase it in plaster, then use the hollow space in the plaster to make a copy of the object with the material of your choice.
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Vaseline
Amazing thing, vaseline. It has many uses.
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Mantelpiece
Some years ago we had an extension built on the house. Just a small room, but enough to give us some quieter space away from the living room and the kids. At the time we had a gas fire installed but no mantel. No problem we said, we can do that.
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Hypertufa
This post is a little late, we’ve been making these for a few months now. Basically, hypertufa is a material made of concrete and organic matter, often called Faux Rock.
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Wood Cart
Here’s something I’ve been sitting on for some time and finally got around to doing. This is a wood cart I found on Shop Notes (well, Google found it for me). The garage is full of bits of wood leaning against the walls and this looked like it would tidy things up.
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Project Board
There was an office move a few weeks ago which was a great occasion for acquiring some second hand goods. This 4’x3’ white board, a little scratched, is a prime example. This will be put to good use as a project/todo board.
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Window
Here’s a window that Sue made on a course last year. It’s been sitting in the shed for, um, a while, and finally it was time to hang it up.
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Chicken Coop VIII
So time has passed and the chickens have settled in nicely into their pen. Well, as long as you count eating all the grass and stamping the dirt down into a hard surface settling in nicely. Which would be fine in the summer but tended to become a sticky bog in the rains.
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What's Inside Your Phone
My son has a way with electronics that is quite remarkable. They tend to break or malfunction near his vicinity with alarming frequency. So it was with little surprise that he announced a few weeks ago that the screen on his cell phone was blank and there was a black thing hanging out the back.
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The 99 Dollar Mistake
Here’s a tale full of error and woe. One day last week the phone stopped working. No dial tone. (I should add that I’m talking about the land line, as those new fangled mobiles seem to be rather popular these days.) Since I don’t know much about phones there was nothing for it but to ring in a support call.
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Two out of three
laminate See that? That’s laminate on bedroom number 2, just one more carpet left to be torn up. Sue reminded me that over the last 8 years or so I’ve replaced all the carpet in the house with laminate flooring. Well nearly all, there’s still that last bedroom to go.
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Sugru
Let me introduce you to Sugru, it’s a slightly weird silicone based putty that air dries into a rubbery type thing. I brought some through the website and after the initial tests it stayed in my drawer until I could think of a good use for it.
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Broken tail light
There’s a danger lurking in the garden and its name is The Large Iron Flowerpot. This menace usually lives quietly by the garage door minding its own business. But for as yet unknown reasons it occasionally decides to sneak up onto a reversing car where its iron lip sticks out at approximately the same height as the rear tail light.
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Ant Fail II
After the last ant entry I felt inspired to make just enough changes to get the ants moving. It’s still a pretty dumb algorithm but at least it doesn’t crash or timeout.
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Refurbished Chairs
The dining room chairs were looking a little shabby, they still had the same green coverings on them as when we brought them. Sue brought some red coverings and thought we could spruce them up a bit.
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Ant Fail
Not much to report on this month, most of my creative efforts have gone into this challenge here. You have to write some AI routines to control a colony of ants as they battle other colonies on a map. (It’s rather like Core Wars which we programmed at university.)
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Chocolate
Making chocolates sounds fun! How hard can it be, just melt a bit and pour it into the mold -easy.
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Candle II
For thanksgiving I made a candle decoration cast from a kids toy. The composimold was used to take the shape, then a small hole was cut in the bottom for the wick to poke through. I was a bit concerned about wax pouring through the hole so made so there were paper towels and newspaper underneath everything. Then I held the wick (a piece of string) in the air as the hot wax was poured in and used a bit of cardboard placed on top to rest the string on as the wax dried.
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Chicken Coop VII
The big day arrived! The chickens laid their first egg today. And here it is
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Garden Labels From Cans
One of the problems we have in the garden is labelling the plants. After a season or two the permanent marker just fades away, no matter what we try to write it on. We have a lot of plants with blank labels and not much will to keep overwriting the writing every year.
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Candle
We had collected a lot of babybell cheese wrappers, which are made of wax, and so it was time to make a candle. I have this stuff called Composimold (see earlier post) which is great for making moulds with. A quick rumage through the kids rooms and we had 5” figurine to test.
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Bag 'o Bits
I recently acquired a whole bunch of Mastercraft rotary bits for the princely sum of $40. Now, we are talking 1,000 accessories to whatever they call their version of a Dremel. Much more importantly to me, I have a Dremel and this was an absolute bargin.
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R2-D2
There’s a really neat site (in Japanese, use Google translator for giggles) that has paper models available for download.
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Chicken Coop VI
Ok, this is getting to be a habit, but here’s another thing that’s been complete for a few weeks before I get around to putting the pictures up.
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Butterfly Fence Update 2011
Time for an update on how the butterfly fence is doing. Here’s a look from the newly refurbished pool area
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Chicken Coop V
Wow, where does the time go? Let’s catch up on the last month with the real stars of the show - the chickens. Here they are at 4 days old in their starter home, which is a plastic tote (utility bin).
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Chicken Coop IV
Ok, well that took a little longer than expected to get the coop done. I completely forgot that May is the busiest time of year for opening the garden and the pool so lots of distractions.
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Chicken Coop III
The four walls are made of a 3/8” plywood sandwich with insulation styrofoam in the middle. Hopefully that will keep the chickens warm in winter. Here are the walls tacked together with some undercoat on them.
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Chicken Coop II
The chicken coop continues on. Three of the main walls are completed and waiting for me to buy the insulation. The walls are double 3/4” plywood with 1 1/2” Styrofoam sandwiched between them. Hopefully that should keep the birds toasty when the snow lays thick all around.
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The Chicken Coop Starts Here
During the winter we decided it was time to get some chickens. Partly for the eggs and partly because Sue really needs to to nurture some fluffy animals and we most definitely have enough cats.
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Grow lights from scratch
Continuing the weeks theme of grow lights, the other project I’ve been working on during the cold months is a set of grow lights built from scratch. The main frame is made from 2x4 and bolted together.
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Converted Grow Lights
Sue likes to grow plants from seeds (annuals, vegetables, etc) but we don’t have a lot of bright windows to get sunlight from. What is needed are some grow lights, only the commercially available ones are quite expensive..
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Composimold
Back on the topic of casting I heard about this reusable mold material called composimold. It comes in this natty plastic tub.
Composimold The jelly like blob on the right is the stuff after it was melted and poured into a plastic container. So what you are supposed to do is
- Put the item(s) you want to cast in a container
- Cover with a releasing agent (i.e. canola oil)
- Heat the composimold and then pour over the items
- Leave to cool
- Use a knife to cut the mold and release the item
- Tape up the mold, pour in some more releasing agent
- Pour in you casting material (i.e. plaster of paris
- Allow to dry
- Release from mold and admire
Simple, eh? Well I can already add a few tips to that list. First off you should tape or glue the items down before covering with composimold otherwise they move around or just float to the surface. Which is entertaining to watch but not really the desired effect.
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Chair Fix
Todays task was to fix some wobbly chair legs. The legs had been worn away and to fix them I went with stuffing slivers of newspaper mixed with wood glue into the crack. It was also a good excuse to use some new tools I got for Christmas - basically small pointy metal sticks meant for carving but very useful for any jobs that require small point metal sticks.
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Dr Who Animation
We got a second hand camera (Nikon D60) with a remote control (fancy). I just had to try that out so did a quick stop frame animation with some Dr Who figures.
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Organic Protrusion Model
Here’s a fun project. Take a can of foam (‘Great Stuff’) and spray onto a piece of cardboard (like some packaging) until the cardboard gets wet and splits. Continue spraying whilst the foam bubbles out the other side and stop when it looks about right.
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Wax Garfield
Here’s a fun one. Save the wax casings from babybell cheeses and use them to make a wax model of the nearest plastic toy, which in this case is Garfield.
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Trebuchet part II
Ok, winter is here and so it’s time to shake down the trebuchet. Also, I have a shiny drill press now so I can put 90 degree holes in the wood and not 92 degree ones which is what I was getting with the hand drill.
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Drill Press
My toy/tool collection increased last month with a 10” drill press for my birthday. Its a Mastercraft brand so not exactly high end but perfect for what I need.
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Paper craft
This is a neat photobucket page. You download the templates, print on a colour printer (or use a big-box printing service, like Staples), cut out and fold up.
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First shot at chainmail
Here’s my first attempt at chainmail using some wire I had left over from tying the raspberry canes back. It’s conceptually very easy to do (twist wire around a cylinder, cut and use pliers to link) but surprisingly fiddly to get all the rings in the pattern they’re supposed to be in.
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Pseudoscope
This article caught my eye the other day - how to make a pseudoscope. (Wikipedia defines them as this.) As if by chance there was an old vanity mirror under the desk that looked perfect for the job and I’ve had a glass cutting tool lying around that I’ve been wanting to use for years.
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Driveway
Not a project, but something quite monumental all the same. A few weeks ago the driveway was paved. It’s gone from messy gravel to shiny tarmac - lovely!
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Wireless antenna
We’re stuck in a lead lined valley where all man made signals are blocked dead. Both Bell and Rogers cell phone signals are reduced to the occasional one bar (although texting seems to work fine) and FM is an ocean of hiss. A while ago we put in a 3’ FM aerial in the loft which has given us the strong FM stations in the area - as long as we only use the radios in the living room where the coax cable comes in.
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A Hungry Mouse and a Trailer
A few months ago we noticed some of the lights on the trailer weren’t working properly. We changed the bulbs and poked around but couldn’t find the source, and anyway we were a bit busy so it got left. Well last weekend it was time to get serious. Armed with screwdrivers and a multi-meter I tested the wires and realized the problem was at the van end. A little nosing under the back and the cause was easy to find - a very chewed up bunch of wires.
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Another Garden Arch
The kids playset was taken down a few weeks ago and that left a hole. Holes should be filled and so we now have the beginnings of an edible garden (i.e. everything in it should be edible, at least to something). This of course means we need a new arch.
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Trebuchet part I
Just for fun we built a small prototype of a trebuchet out of scraps of 2x2 that was lying around. The counter weight is a brick, the sling is made of duct tape and string and the release mechanism is a nail. Simple stuff. Rather surprisingly it threw a tennis ball a good 30’ or so.
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Lindsay Milk Run
A little bit off topic but yesterday I completed my first ever 5km run in the Lindsay Milk Run 2010 with a rather nondescript time of 27mins 40secs.
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Posture Arch
A posture arch is a bit of bent wood you lie on to help relieve back pain. I use one at the gym I go to (it’s attached to a physiotherapist so there’s lots of odd things lying around). The only problem is they charge $120 for this piece of bent wood.
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Gutter Garden
We tried an experiment this year and put up a piece of plastic guttering to use as a small vegetable garden. It’s not worked out too badly. The lettuce is growing the best with the spring onions and radishes not doing as well. It’s still very handy to have veggies to pick just outside the kitchen.
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Fresh Strawberries
This has been a record year for our strawberry bed. Usually we get a bowl of smallish berries but this year we’ve had bowlfuls of luscious berries.
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Earthquake!
My first earthquake. Nothing special, just a rumbling of the ground, the blinds on the window shaking, one larger shake and then all finished. It livened up a work day, though.
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Snowflakes
During the winter I had a go at storing a snowflake. The idea is you let some freshly fallen snow fall onto some superglue which is on a glass slide, then put the lot into the freezer for a week or two. The glue sets in the freezer trapping the snowflake inside.
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Testing
Hello, just a first post so the front page doesn’t look so empty. This is not intended to be a very active blog, it’s just a place to store stuff so I don’t have to keep sending out emails when we do something picture-worthy.
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Butterfly Fence
We decided to dedicate a spot in the garden for butterfly friendly plants and other things that might attract a passing butterfly. Of course this spot needed to be marked out and so the idea of the butterfly fence was born. It’s a five panel fence where each panel is carved and painted. I’d never done anything like this before so I wasn’t entirely certain how it would turn out.