Category Archives: DIY

DIY Jewelry Wall Organizer and Display

I?ve talked before about how I don?t have a lot of clothes, but I do like to accessorize what I have to keep it looking fresh. I ended up collecting a plethora of costume necklaces, and they all just got piled up on my dresser and looked like a huge mess. I started looking for something to hang them on, but anything I found just cost too much to justify buying. So in the meantime I started hanging all the necklaces on a clothes hanger in my closet just to keep them out of the way.

A few months of this went by, and my necklaces were still getting in a jumbled mess that I would have to pull apart every time I wanted to wear one.

Mike of course is very handy, but I am not. I decided I wanted to change that and asked him if he would help to teach me some wood working skills, and he was totally on board. I looked up a few pictures online and found an idea for a cabinet that I really liked on Ana White?s website (https://ana-white.com/2012/06/plans/wall-jewelry-cabinet). Mike liked it too, but made a few adjustments to it to make it our own.

Unfortunately, the day we selected to do this ended up being a bit busy. We had to squeeze the project into a two and a half hour window between teaching in the morning and a bridal shower in the afternoon. Mike was a total trooper and gathered all the supplies and tools needed and was ready to get to work as soon as I got there. The two and a half hours weren?t enough to get everything done, so Mike had to finish up the door to the cabinet after I left. Even though I didn?t get to do a ton of work, I really enjoyed helping Mike and learning the processes needed for a project like this.

And it also doesn?t hurt that I LOVE the finished product!

DIY Copper Cup for Moscow Mule | Made from 3/4″ Pipe!

All the cool kids are drinking Moscow Mules. But they?re supposed to be served in copper cups, which are expensive. Here?s how to make your own DIY copper cups with nothing more than 3/4 inch copper pipe. You can buy all of the materials for about $3 per cup from the hardware store, or find scrap metal and make them cheap or free.

I?ve never done any sort of copper or sheet metal fabrication so this is about what you can expect if you?re a beginner. Overall I?m happy with the results. The hardest part was learning to solder or ?sweat? the parts together.

Our Moscow Mule recipe is 2oz vodka and 4oz ginger beer. These cups ended up about 7 ounces which are perfect.

Recommended Video – Vintage Knife Blade Light Switch

The One Project I Refuse to DIY

There’s only a handful of DIY projects I don’t like doing. Drywall finishing, window tint, and carpet installation. But I’ll still do them to save some money. After today, I’m never going to attempt one particular project again. Tire installation.

I ruined my scooter rim this morning because I didn’t want to pay the 20 bucks to have my new tire mounted by the professionals.

From now on I’ll be buying my tires online and taking the rims and tires to a professional to be mounted.

DIY Automatic Chicken Coop Door Opener

We wanted to make our chickens easier to take care of by building our own automatic chicken coop door opener. Using a couple of parts off eBay, we’re able to set up a 12V door opening system complete with opener, battery, and solar panel.

Things didn’t go as planned in this episode because the light sensor switch, which would normally open the door at sunrise and close it at sunset would not work.

But we got a great start, and decided on a design for the chicken coop that looks like an aircraft hangar!

Tricking Lauren into Buying a RV | Buying and Selling on Craigslist

Whenever there is an expensive hobby or vehicle I want to buy, I always tell Lauren I can find a way to make money from it. When I wanted to buy a RV, I made the same deal with her.

We bought a 1991 Toyota Winnebago Itasca for $3500, never used it, and then sold it for a $2800 profit. This is the story of how we did it.

DIY Vintage Light Switch (Frankenstein Knife Switch)

Parts and Build:

I bought an antique knife switch off eBay as a decoration. When I got it in the mail, I knew I wanted to make it actually work. ?But I needed to make it safe. ?So I used a solid state relay and a phone changer to wire everything together. ?You can watch the process in the video above. ?I got everything to fit inside of the light switch box, so I didn’t need to drill into the wall.