NOTICE: Large moosehead wall lights have finally been invented.
360 Modern is a real estate firm in the Pacific Northwest U.S. that specializes in modern homes. Beautiful stuff.
Handy way to skip all the intro crap on DVDs that is usually forced on you when you throw a disc in your player. Apparently the chapters on DVDs that you can't skip (FBI warnings, copyright stuff, etc.) are flagged, on the disc, as UOP, or User Operation Prohibited. This site lists some of the techniques you can try to skip the ennui.
This colour coordinated bookshelf looks cool, but you might have a hard time finding a particular title.
For chewie edge lovers or corner brownie fans - it's the Edge Brownie Pan. All edges, all the time. Via BoingBoing
Puzzle carpet.
This to That is a handy site that will tell you what adhesive to use when attempting to glue various objects together.
Super creative bathroom tiles.
Skinny house in Brazil.
Apparently there are many LED lightbulbs available already. Via TreeHugger
WiiRoomba. YouTube of a guy controlling his Roomba with a Wii remote.
Hardcore Lost fans have a party and repackage the snacks and beer as Dharma Initiative rations. Make your own with the PDFs that they've so generously shared.
Here's a nice set of home improvement videos with the energetic and snappy Eric Stromer.
Faucet Fountain turns your regular faucet into a drinking fountain.
Kids and the Home Office. Here's a list of tips for the parent that works from home.
Save the Internet.
Great Pac-Man bathroom tile work.
Crazy toaster from the future TODAY!
Here is a nice napkin folding howto site with clean pictures and straightforward instructions. I think the shirt's my favourite.
DIY T-Shirt Rack via Instructables.
360 Modern is a real estate firm in the Pacific Northwest U.S. that specializes in modern homes. Beautiful stuff.
Handy way to skip all the intro crap on DVDs that is usually forced on you when you throw a disc in your player. Apparently the chapters on DVDs that you can't skip (FBI warnings, copyright stuff, etc.) are flagged, on the disc, as UOP, or User Operation Prohibited. This site lists some of the techniques you can try to skip the ennui.
This colour coordinated bookshelf looks cool, but you might have a hard time finding a particular title.
For chewie edge lovers or corner brownie fans - it's the Edge Brownie Pan. All edges, all the time. Via BoingBoing
Puzzle carpet.
This to That is a handy site that will tell you what adhesive to use when attempting to glue various objects together.
Super creative bathroom tiles.
Skinny house in Brazil.
Apparently there are many LED lightbulbs available already. Via TreeHugger
WiiRoomba. YouTube of a guy controlling his Roomba with a Wii remote.
Hardcore Lost fans have a party and repackage the snacks and beer as Dharma Initiative rations. Make your own with the PDFs that they've so generously shared.
Here's a nice set of home improvement videos with the energetic and snappy Eric Stromer.
Faucet Fountain turns your regular faucet into a drinking fountain.
Kids and the Home Office. Here's a list of tips for the parent that works from home.
Save the Internet.
Great Pac-Man bathroom tile work.
Crazy toaster from the future TODAY!
Here is a nice napkin folding howto site with clean pictures and straightforward instructions. I think the shirt's my favourite.
DIY T-Shirt Rack via Instructables.
Enviroscaping to Conserve Energy
Enviroscaping to Conserve Energy is an interesting guide on maximizing your home's energy efficiency by modifying various aspects of its immediate environment, or "Microclimate".
A microclimate is any small, local area within which the effects of weather are both relatively uniform and easily modified. Microclimate modification involves the best use of structural and landscape design elements to maximize or limit sunlight, shade and air movement. Structural modifications involve the design of the house and associated construction (walkways, fences, patios). Landscape modifications (enviroscaping) involve the use of plants to further increase or decrease the impact of sun and wind upon the local environment.
This site, which applies mostly to homes in hot weather climates such as Florida, offers a lot of interesting ways that a home owner can creatively reduce energy usage. Some of the suggestions apply to potential home builders, such as home orientation (a house is more energy efficient if it is oriented with the long axis running east-west), however the majority of the tips apply to existing residences.
There are many examples of "enviroscaping" strategies on the site, such as optimal tree placement for maximum shading, tree type (In winter, the sun is low in the southern sky. Southern exposures of a home in north and central Florida can receive free benefits of passive solar heating, provided that deciduous trees are used along the southern exposures. Deciduous trees shed their leaves in the fall, and are bare during the coldest months of the year.), fencing options (fences vary in amount of air circulation), shrub and vine placement along walls, increasing air conditioner efficiency and much more.
Link: Enviroscaping to Conserve Energy: a Guide to Microclimate Modification
A microclimate is any small, local area within which the effects of weather are both relatively uniform and easily modified. Microclimate modification involves the best use of structural and landscape design elements to maximize or limit sunlight, shade and air movement. Structural modifications involve the design of the house and associated construction (walkways, fences, patios). Landscape modifications (enviroscaping) involve the use of plants to further increase or decrease the impact of sun and wind upon the local environment.
This site, which applies mostly to homes in hot weather climates such as Florida, offers a lot of interesting ways that a home owner can creatively reduce energy usage. Some of the suggestions apply to potential home builders, such as home orientation (a house is more energy efficient if it is oriented with the long axis running east-west), however the majority of the tips apply to existing residences.
There are many examples of "enviroscaping" strategies on the site, such as optimal tree placement for maximum shading, tree type (In winter, the sun is low in the southern sky. Southern exposures of a home in north and central Florida can receive free benefits of passive solar heating, provided that deciduous trees are used along the southern exposures. Deciduous trees shed their leaves in the fall, and are bare during the coldest months of the year.), fencing options (fences vary in amount of air circulation), shrub and vine placement along walls, increasing air conditioner efficiency and much more.
Link: Enviroscaping to Conserve Energy: a Guide to Microclimate Modification
Harvest Rain Water for Toilet Water
According to Google, toilets account for anywhere between 20 to 40 percent of household water consumption. Given that we waste clean, otherwise drinkable water flushing our toilets, it should come as no surprise that many people harvest rainwater for toilets and other household purposes where potable water isn't necessary. The author of this howto walks us through the setup of a rainwater-to-toilet system, while sharing his reasons for doing so:
While it doesn't come close to making up for our gas-guzzling, high-consuming lifestyles, rain harvesting does have a positive impact on our environment. Domestic potable water collection requires effort, energy, and chemicals for purification and transport...
Your house is an "impermeable surface". Rain would otherwise hit the ground where your house is and soak into the underground water table or enter a natural stream. Instead, rainfall from the roofs of many urban homes is tied into the sewer system. During periods of heavy rain, this storm surge from houses, parking lots, and streets into the sewer system can max out treatment capacity, causing raw sewage to flow out untreated into waterways. Harvesting some of this storm surge can reduce peak demands on our water treatment facilities.
Besides the more important environmental issues, most of us in urban areas pay for domestic potable water. I have calculated that each flush of the rainwater toilet (1.6 gallons) saves me just over 1 cent. Costing less than $100 to install, this system will pay for itself over the years.
Also, I have the satisfaction of a small level of self-sufficiency from an urban lifestyle otherwise dependant on society for survival.
The guide covers the details of rainwater collection, a formula for calculating your harvest potential, detailed pictures of the entire setup (including how to mesh the rainwater system to standard toilet plumbing via selector valve, enabling the toilet to run off of either system) as well as a breakdown of parts and costs for the project.
Email Ten Easiest Ways to Green Your Home
MSN offers this handy list of home energy reducing techniques that will not only help make your home a little greener, but will also put some money back in your pocket in the process. Tips cover heating and air conditioning improvements, greener gardening, hardwood floor choices and a few more.
Wikibooks also has a very large page of energy saving tips that should be useful to most of us, including efficient heating and cooling ideas as well as lighting, water, household waste and electricity reducing suggestions.
Wikibooks also has a very large page of energy saving tips that should be useful to most of us, including efficient heating and cooling ideas as well as lighting, water, household waste and electricity reducing suggestions.
Make Your Own Headboard
Apparently in Australia they call headboards 'bedheads' - which is out of control. Jump over to MSN Australia, and if you can decipher their "English" then you should be able to follow this step-by-step howto on creating your very own headboard.Headboards can have a dramatic effect on any bedroom, but they tend not to come cheap. If you don't have a lot to spend and you're plagued by a tiny bed in a big bedroom, then maybe a DIY project like this is what you need to create a handsome focal point while balancing the space.
The different headboard guides offered in the howto all end up in the $70 ballpark, which isn't too bad at all.
Also check out their complete list of DIY projects and crafts here.
Consumer Reports Air Conditioner Power Calculator
How powerful an air conditioner do you need? Consumer Reports have created a comprehensive air conditioner power calculator that uses criteria such as geographic location, room size, wall frame type, ceiling height, window size/orientation and more to determine the most energy efficient air conditioner for your space. The calculator uses your actual kWh rate to produce a yearly operating cost estimate.
Via Fepy.com
DIY Kitchen Countertop
Extremehowto.com walks you through constructing and mounting a kitchen countertop. The project appears quite intensive, which, come to think of it, is totally consistent with their site name. The amount of work involved seems to be more than what's involved in the DIY concrete countertop project, although that might not be the case once one becomes more acquainted with both jobs, but it does explain why kitchen work can be so costly.
Sub Thirty Dollar Homemade Air Conditioner
Some enterprising student at the University of Waterloo has made his own air conditioner using a fan, a large garbage can and some vinyl and copper tubing. The device works as follows:Here's the basic setup. The garbage can is filled with ice water, which is then fed by gravity (a siphon) through the copper tubing coiled along the back of the fan. The hot air passing through the tubing warms the cold water, cooling the air. Waste warm water is then pumped outside. The system will cool an average room to a comfortable level in approximately 15-20 minutes. Depending on flow rate, a full bucket of water will last approximately 1-3 hours. I use a single bucket before bed on hot nights, which lets me get to sleep. Once the water runs out, the house has cooled off enough that the fan alone provides sufficient cooling.
Recently, someone has posted instructions for making improvements to the homemade air conditioner, which involves an aquarium pump to recycle the water, which in the first generation model, was routed outside the house.
Via LifeHacker
Make a Hundred Inch Screen for Under a Hundred Bucks
Although the title sounds like an Ebay auction that offers you 10 foot TVs for $2.99, this howto from Projector Central really does deliver a thorough walk through on constructing a projector screen yourself. The article details, in 7 steps, how you can create a 100 inch, 16:9 screen for $98.50.
Here's the criteria they were after, from the article:
It must be cheap. Total budget for all materials to make a 100" diagonal 16:9 screen, including frame, must be less than $100.
It must be simple and quick to assemble. We did not want to make a lifetime hobby out of making a screen. We wanted the materials to be easy to find, and we wanted to put it together in less than two hours of invested labor.
It must be easy to install. We wanted a no muss, no fuss solution with a fixed frame that we could hang on a wall in a matter of minutes.
It must perform!!! We had no delusions that we could invest a hundred bucks and a couple hours labor and come up with a screen that would match the quality of the Stewart screens we use in the projection labs. But how close could we come? That was the challenge. And as you will see below, the results were surprisingly good.
If the cost of the screen is what's been holding you back from buying a projector, perhaps a frugal DIY solution such as this one will be your tipping point.
Article: Make a 100" Screen for under $100
Here's the criteria they were after, from the article:
It must be cheap. Total budget for all materials to make a 100" diagonal 16:9 screen, including frame, must be less than $100.
It must be simple and quick to assemble. We did not want to make a lifetime hobby out of making a screen. We wanted the materials to be easy to find, and we wanted to put it together in less than two hours of invested labor.
It must be easy to install. We wanted a no muss, no fuss solution with a fixed frame that we could hang on a wall in a matter of minutes.
It must perform!!! We had no delusions that we could invest a hundred bucks and a couple hours labor and come up with a screen that would match the quality of the Stewart screens we use in the projection labs. But how close could we come? That was the challenge. And as you will see below, the results were surprisingly good.
If the cost of the screen is what's been holding you back from buying a projector, perhaps a frugal DIY solution such as this one will be your tipping point.
Article: Make a 100" Screen for under $100
Do it Yourself Mosquito Trap
Here's a neat way to turn a 2 litre Coke bottle into a deadly mosquito death trap of doom - oh and whatever you do; don't get all smug and think that just because the West Nile virus seems to have fallen out of favour with the press thanks to the always imminent bird flu that the little buzzers aren't still out there patiently plotting humanity's demise.
Speaking of mosquitoes, apparently some clever teens have recorded the so-called Mosquito alarm that malls have been experimenting with to keep kids from loitering (the Mosquito alarm is a high pitched alarm that cannot be heard by most people over 20, but tends to drive teens crazy) and have adapted it to be used, surreptitious, as a quasi-silent ringtone on their cell phones during class. Heh, kids.
Make Your Own Topsy Turvy Tomato Planter
If you like the Topsy Turvy Tomato Planter but don't want to spend the money, why not make your own poor man's version? From the site: There were of course the usual hanging planters that are really nothing more than a regular pot with strings tied to a ceiling hook. These really didn?t appeal to me due to previous experiences where the water of flowed down through the soil and filled the overflow basin at the bottom. Another option is hanging inverted planters which have been around for a very long time. Some in a much older design made from terra cotta in a traditional mexican style and a newer one made of plastic that had internal foam spacers for dirt/water containment. This naturally put my mind into make it myself mode.
With flora becoming so elevated lately, we may never get to try the nifty gardening chair, sadly.
Skype Releases Version 2.0 With Video
Skype, the incredibly user friendly VOIP client, just added video capabilities to it's software package. Skype is one of the best internet apps out there because, besides looking good and being intuitive, as many have said before: it just plain works. The sound quality is great, and stands up flawlessly when compared to a regular POTS system. Sticking it to the phone company is always nice, too.
via Digg
Make Your Own Skype Phone Adapter
If you've not already wired up your pre-existing POTS system to your VOIP system, you may be interested in this DIY project that walks you through the creation of a telephone-to-VOIP adapter for your wired or cordless phones. From the site:Just imagine: You can walk with your wireless phone chatting with Skype friends for free, you can make free call to your mom if she is connected to the Internet...Skype wireless phones are expensive, VoIP adapters cost ~$60, but you can make it for free if your have details.. from old TV, Radio or other electronics.
Recent stuff from HouseHacker:
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