Category Archive

Do It Yourself

How-tos, photos and topics of DIY discussion.

How to make a kick-ass (and baby proofed) DIY bar from an old media cabinet

Our kitchen has limited storage, so we knew that we needed an alternate solution to use to store our extensive liquor and glassware collections. And so the repurposed media cabinet to bar was born. Here’s an outline of our process…

How to make your own Borax-free laundry soap

How to make your own Borax-free laundry soap

This recipe is Borax free, Naptha free, perfume and dye free, and about as gentle as it gets. It’s great for babies, people with allergies or sensitive skin, and doesn’t leave residues. Natural laundry soap is great for hard and soft water towns. And if you DIY it, it costs five times less than commercial detergents, and you can use less of it!

Create colorful vases with crocheted Mason jar cozies

Who does love a shelf full of colorful jar awesomeness!? Got a lot of Mason jars and a lot of yarn? Wanna make these yourself? I don’t blame you. Here are a couple of YouTube tutorials to get you started…

How do you get into cosplay?

I’m a sucker for costuming and drooling over amazing cosplay pictures online. In October my local bike shop is having a “tweed ride” involving riding in period costumes, and I want to use this to give a try at cosplay (Victorian Mary Watson in her badass riding habit, for those who wonder). I don’t have an inkling where to start. I can sew, but should I sew my whole costume? Alter some pieces of garment? Are there tacit rules for cosplaying? Is the devil really in the details?

Installing IKEA kitchen cabinets the DIY way

I consider myself an Ikea veteran. I have assembled dozens, if not hundreds, of pieces of Ikea furniture over the last 30 years. I am one with the allen wrench. So when I saw the raised eyebrows when I told the Ikea employees I’d be installing my kitchen myself, I knew it was going to be work. For anyone else considering doing a DIY Ikea kitchen install I offer the following advice…

Stop cheating your electric: How to safely replace a 2-prong outlet

Today we’re going to talk about power outlets, grounding, and how you can safely plug things into an old 2-prong outlet by replacing it with a GFCI or “ground fault circuit interrupter” receptacle. Doing electrical work can be intimidating, but if you follow the directions and use common sense this one is actually pretty easy.

How we DIYed our IKEA kitchen remodel

While we hired contractors for the Serious Business projects like structural and electrical work, we decided to tackle updating the kitchen cabinets ourselves. We chose Ikea cabinets as they were generally agreed to be the best quality for the price and we wanted to keep this a budget kitchen wherever possible. Here’s how we pulled it all off…

How to make your own museum-worthy kinsugi bowl

I wanted my DIY kinsugi bowl to look like some sort of weird space rock, or rare mineral. When we honeymooned in Washington DC, I spent hours in the Natural History museum where I verified that my results were spot-on. Here was the process I went through…