Sprout a Couch Do-it-yourself decorating allows you to customize your home, apartment, condo, or room with DIY accents that transform your space on a budget without completing a full-scale remodel. Whether you're a beginner or an expert, we guide you with instructions, tutorials, and step-by-step photos for indoor and outdoor projects and room makeovers. We have tips, techniques, and tools to get you started on paint projects, the easiest way to freshen up a space or decor item. But it doesn't stop there! Garden Games A patio floor does double duty as a Scrabble board. E. Spencer Toy Click to Enlarge "I like areas of double use," says Sacramento architect Kristy McAuliffe, and her 5-foot square Scrabble board rates at least a double-word score on the scale of inventive garden games. With the help of friend Keith Rogers, McAuliffe made a wood frame, then poured concrete and scored it into 3¾-inch squares separated by ¼-inch joints. After the concrete had cured for one month, she colored the squares using water-base concrete stains. McAuliffe then made 100 3¼-inch square letter tiles from baseboard trim. She found precut, adhesive-backed vinyl letters and numbers at a sign shop, stuck them on the tiles, and sealed each one with spray lacquer. The lightweight letters, which are stored in a canvas bag, fit on metal trays made by McAuliffe's friend, metal artist Crystal Weber. Games go late on summer evenings. More: Our favorite backyard projects
Rock Rocket Stove Is Held Together By Coat Hangers © Liz To Rocket stoves burn hot and clean, using very little wood or other combustibles. Vancouver industrial designer Liz To has designed a new version for Tibet, where they use dung as fuel. Liz notes that 1.6 million people die from indoor pollution from traditional "Three Stones" type fires every year. Meanwhile, in the west, 3.5 billion wire hangers end up in U.S. landfill every year. Designboom describes it: Canadian designer Liz to has repurposed unwanted wire hangers from north america as an opportunity for remote communities to build their own stove. It is a really clever idea; wire hangers don't take up a lot of space, (200,000 to a shipping container) but woven into the stove shape and filled with rocks, they become a stable and effective stove. The stove won a few Canadian industrial design awards when Liz presented it at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and deserves more.
Outdoor Decor: 5 Beautiful DIY Paper Lantern Projects » Curbly | DIY Design Community « Keywords: DIY, outdoor, decor, lantern I know what you are thinking: paper and outdoors?? Well, perhaps not permanantly, but for those non-rainy summer gatherings, you will want your outdoors do be as fun and welcoming as your indoors. Paper is inexpensive, comes in a bazillion varieties, and makes a big impact! 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Hopefully these cheap and easy DIY's will get you in the mood for a little summer socializing. Tagged : outdoor, decor, lantern, lighting, summer, paper, Craft, DIY, DIY
erik’s recycled wine bottle torch this clever outdoor diy idea comes from erik anderson of gerardot & co.- a creative branding and design agency in indianapolis. erik was kind enough to share a fantastic project that turns an everyday bottle into a modern backyard tiki torch. i love the way these torches look and am dying to find a backyard to use these in- too bad the closest thing we have is a 2×2 foot fire escape. but for those of you with yards, i hope you’ll enjoy this project from erik. click here for more info on the project and click here to check out erik’s work at gerardot & co. thanks, erik! CLICK HERE for the full project instructions after the jump! [****Safety Note: This is for outdoor use only. Recycled Wind Bottle Torch In any of my design work, whether for clients or for myself, I’m most proud when I can find a solution that’s highly creative and effective while keeping resources to a minimum. 1. Helpful Tools: Channellocks, adjustable wrench, hacksaw, power screwdriver, and a funnel Building Instructions
How To Build Rocket Mass Heaters / Stoves Folding Geodesic Dome Updated May 7 '012: The prototype is great for backyard use but not wind-proof enough for open desert. To make it more weatherproof, I have just taped all the tab hinges to cover the flutes and keep water out. The tape covers much of the face of each tab to give it extra friction along with spray tack adhesive on all tabs, but in testing this setup still blows apart in strong gusts/dust devils. Using clips to secure the tabs still allows too much slippage and the panels come apart from each other. Next method to test: heavy-duty staples to secure tabs to each other, which of course would need a staple-puller to minimize damage to tabs. This seems like a fast way to erect the dome, but it would slow the deconstruction process. Once deployed I add short strips of tape across all joints on the outside of the dome to bolster it against slippage, and around the door joints. Putting this up in windy conditions would be problematic; morning while it’s cool and calm is the ideal time.
DIY Patio Table with Built-in Beer/Wine Coolers - Domesticated Engineer Really, what is better than a patio table with a built in cooler! Who really wants to get up to get another beer? Almost everyone has seen this picture of the wine cooler patio table ether on Pinterest or Reddit. This picture was taken at Medlock Ames’ tasting room. Right after my husband saw this he asked me to make it happen. Patio Table with built in Beer/Wine Cooler with Lids Like in my farmhouse table post I am going to be breaking the instructions into two parts. Part 1: Table Construction A little more about the design: The first thing I did after having the initial concept sketched out in SoildWorks was go out and find the perfect cooler insert. View of the table top. Going back to the drawing board, I played around with the design to incorporate the two planter boxes. View of the bottom of the table. Instructions: After the designs were done was head to our local lumber yard to get our cut list made. The first step after getting home with all the boards is to sand all of them.
Terracotta Pot Candle Heater | Do something a Terracotta Pot Candle Heater. He sells the units but also provides all the details for us DIY people to make our own. It consists of nuts and bolts which provide the metal mass along with 3 terracotta pots and a metal base. I haven’t made or used one of these but it seems like it would be the perfect device to put in an office or a den just to keep the chill out of the air. Video Sources: hackedgadgets
Homebuilt Camper Trailer Safari BaseCamp 10 is a homebuilt camper trailer that my dad and my brother and I built, with the help of some nearby craftsmen. One of the goals has been to create a self-sufficient system that facilitates a complete set of commodities without the need for hookups. Although many details were worked out during construction, there was quite a bit of prior planning and dreaming involved. It's probably been over two years since the building began, and we're still not done tweaking it. We took BaseCamp 10 on its first camping trip about a year ago. Since Dad did most of the work and we boys helped with some things along the way, I may use "we" to refer to all or any of the the three of us throughout this instructable. The project was based on a 4x8-ft. aluminum trailer frame. Dad designed and built a 34-in. The box contained three main compartments. We outfitted the middle compartment of the main box with a 20-gal. water tank as well as a pump.
How To Make a Simple Tree House Apartment Therapy Tutorials With the arrival of Spring, I decided it was time to bust out and build a tree house for Ursula, which I'd never done before. I remember having one as a kid and loving it. I wanted one that I could build in a day, wouldn't be too high up so as to worry me or other parents, and which was SIMPLE in design to maximize playtime and allow for adding on later. This tree house was built out of scrap wood and branches I had in our yard, and is a strong enough design not to require any more reinforcement than what you see here. What You Need Materials: Circular or hand saw Power drill with a philips screw bit Level 6"-8" screws or nails (nails are stronger) for the frame 3" screws for the deck 2 - 6 foot 2"x6" pieces 2 - filler pieces of 2"x6" 8 - 4' decking pieces or 1"x6" Small cut branch logs Rugs, pillows and accessories to suit Instructions 1. Use only one screw in each so that you can adjust them to get them level with one another before putting in four more screws. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
a little brown egg in Maine: terra cotta smoker The first step (after prowling the web) was assembling the kit of parts. Here they are, arrayed on my front porch: on the bottom step, the item I was most worried about finding, the single burner hot plate. The last time I saw something like that , it was an illegal object in my dorm room, in a time before the web. (Yes, I am OLD!) Most web authors claimed I'd need 1000 watts. In the middle, the cookery gear. On the top, the pottery. an azalea pot ($9.99) will be the base, and a bulb bowl ($6.99) will be the top.
Yurt Without Steel I built this 10 foot diameter yurt without metal fasteners from free materials. It has the same proportions as the "standard" Mongolian ger scaled down. The varnished wood and white liner give it a marvelous feeling inside. Lots of people told me this was the best shelter they'd seen at Burningman. ("Yurt" is the Russian word. "Ger" is the Mongolian) Most of the wooden parts are sawed from the slats of a futon couch. At Burning Man I set the yurt up on top of my truck's lumber rack on a platform of redwood boards. In the next photo Pete and Leslie take shelter in the Yurt during a dust storm.During a break in the dust storms there's some rain.
8 Great Backyard Movie Tips mmmm. Summer evenings are my favorite. I am always looking for a good excuse to be outside when the sun goes down—s’mores, stargazing, or of course, the quintessential backyard movie night. As the wife of a film fanatic and former Circuit City salesman (I used to visit Brent at work in college and admire him in his pinkish-maroon Circuit City shirt), I have been required come to appreciate a great backyard set up. So here, with the combined efforts of my techie husband and untechie self, are a few of the tips we’ve learned. 1. 2. 3. Hi everyone, this is AmberLee’s techie husband, Brent. 4. PROJECTOR. 5. 6. 7. 8. Tagged as: Giverslog tutorials, good food for simple entertaining